


Black Magic

by superdanganisland



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair, Casual Sex, F/M, Humor, Investigation, Island Mode, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi, Mystery, Plot-relevant porn, Suspense, Threesome - F/M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:56:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3404711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superdanganisland/pseuds/superdanganisland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Against anyone’s better judgement, Souda is invited to what was supposed to be a one-time tryst - but when a mysterious voyeur witnesses the affair, Monokuma gives them 24 hours to figure out who it was and reverse the damage or he’s going to punish them with the shaming of a lifetime.</p><p>In essence: What <i>really</i> happened on those security cameras?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happened when I thought too hard about the chain of events that would have to lead up to an actual ot3 scene, and this was the result. This becomes a sort of dangan ronpa/hangover-esque mystery that’s less focused on the smut and more about the inherent absurdity of the whole ordeal. It's sexual in nature, but the part in question can be skipped entirely if it ain't your jam.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonia and Tanaka have a sort of "illicit relationship" going on while the rest of the students are busy building their friendships in less explicit ways. No one knows about it, because they're good at hiding it, but Sonia decides one day that they should try something new and suggests the idea of a threesome with one of the other students on the island. All of their options are terrible, obviously, but since they can't just go around asking everybody, who's the one person who's definitely gonna say yes? Yeah, _that_ guy. The story picks up right upon the delivery of the request.

Tanaka had been giving him weird looks all morning.

Of course, it wasn’t anything  too out-of-the-ordinary — Souda would frequently notice the guy hovering around long before he’d be approached by him. Tanaka would always ask the strangest things whenever he dropped by, which on a normal day was something animal-related, or alternatively, utterances about the “whispers of the wind” or whatever other nonsense he had on the mind. Souda would usually humor his inquiries though, because even if he was kind of a pain in the ass, he could at least admit that there was a never a dull moment with Tanaka around.

The looks he was receiving from him today were just a little weirder than usual.

Today was one of their lucky days off, and Souda and Hinata had snagged a table together on the second floor of the hotel where they and the others were enjoying a hearty breakfast together courtesy of Hanamura. The chef always jumped at the chance to make them a meal whenever he had the opportunity, and without Monokuma’s dreadful cooking to greet them in the morning, the atmosphere in the dining room was a bit more chipper than usual. The two friends sat across from one another with their heaping plates and made some lighthearted conversation to pass the time.

A couple of times while talking over their meal, Souda happened to peer over Hinata’s shoulder only to notice Tanaka’s eyes aimed in his direction. Each time he was caught making eye contact, the other man would quickly turn away as if to feign indifference. It was incredibly obvious he was up to something. Souda didn’t really care that much that he was being watched by  that guy of all people, but he was getting rather distracted by it at this point. He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head as he watched him turn away another time.

“…Something the matter?” Hinata asked. “You seem a little out of it.”

Souda snapped his attention back to his tablemate. “Huh? Nah, It’s nothin’. Just thinkin’ about stuff.”

“Just checking,” he said. “I think I’m gonna get some more tea, though, if that’s alright. I’ll be back in a couple minutes. Need anything while I’m up?”

He politely declined the offer, and Hinata stood up and excused himself to go prepare another drink in the kitchen, leaving Souda at the table all by himself. It was not but seconds later that Tanaka stood up from his seat on the other side of the room and appeared to be heading in his direction. Souda watched his approach and took a deep breath, hoping he was ready for whatever the guy was about to hit him with, because knowing Tanaka, it could be anything.

Tanaka meandered through the other students and over to his table like a snake in the grass, with a single cup of the darkest, blackest coffee imaginable clutched in his bandaged hand. Souda sighed, swirling his orange juice around in his glass as the man approached. He turned his eyes up at him. “Yes? What can I do for ya?”

He cleared his throat before speaking. “If I may bring it to your attention, I have a matter of utmost importance I must discuss with you.”

“And what might that be?”

Between the background noise of idle chatter and clinking silverware, it seemed that no one else was paying them much attention. Tanaka took this chance and stepped over to Souda’s side of the table, bending down near his ear, close enough that the mechanic could smell the earthy aroma of his drink as the wisps of steam danced around in front of his face. He instinctively tensed up, not expecting his reclusive classmate to get this far into his comfort zone. Tanaka lowered his voice to a deep whisper and enunciated each word slowly and deliberately as he spoke.

“I would like to request that you meet with me downstairs in the lobby as soon as you are able.”

Souda made a face as Tanaka straightened himself back out to his full height. “…Huh? What are you bein’ all secretive about?” He continued to swirl his juice around in his cup. “What could  possibly be so important that you can’t say it right here? Just tell me.”

Tanaka raised his brow, looking over his shoulder to the crowd of distracted students and then turning back to Souda. “…I cannot say. If this conversation were to fall upon the ears of the unwary, it could potentially bring about the destruction of us both. It must be done in private.”

“Bring about the… what? Are you tryin’ to drag me into somethin’?” he asked. “Listen, if this is about that beach party tomorrow, forget it. I’m already going with Hinata.”

Tanaka stiffened. “Hah! An arrogant assumption, if I ever heard one! You think a being of formed from the chaos at the creation of the universe cares for the petty affairs of you pitiful lifeforms? I was ancient when your ancestors were naught but protoplasmic slime! I lost interest in such drivel a thousand ages ago, when the elder gods were a mere concept!”

“You could've just said ‘no’, ya know…” Souda mumbled. It was pretty typical of Tanaka to ramp up his speech when he was dodging around a topic. “Listen, if all you’re gonna do is come over here and mess with me, I’m not in the mood for it. Tell me or get outta here.”

“I assure you, Souda, it would be  most unwise to fail to attend this meeting." His tone was deathly serious, not that it was much of a change from his usual manner. He fidgeted with his scarf, casting another quick glance behind him and back towards Souda.

“Yeah, yeah, I bet. I’m tryin’ to eat here, do you mind? My food’s getting cold,” he complained, stirring around the pile of eggs on his plate with a fork in one hand. “Can’t you like, go bug Kuzuryuu or something to go join your magic ritual or whatever?”

His voice grew more firm. “Do not make me repeat myself. Come now or forever forfeit the opportunity. If you choose to ignore this request, so be it, but it would be a decision that would forever weigh down on your conscience.” He leaned in as he spoke, planting both hands on the table.

Souda groaned, now becoming thoroughly irritated by his badgering and growing more aggravated by the second. Tanaka was usually not this pushy after it was made clear that his presence was not wanted. “Ughh! Would you go away before Hinata gets back?! Whatever you’re planning, I don’t want anything to do w-”

The next few words came spilling out of his mouth as he suddenly became aware of a pair of silvery blue eyes watching them from across the room. It was Sonia, of all people, whose gaze was transfixed on the two boys as she sipped from a cup of tea in her hands. She delicately set down her drink and crossed her fingers in front of herself, continuing to observe them in silence while the other girls at her table were lost in their own conversation. Souda stumbled over his speech, struggling to recompose himself after noticing they were being spied on and nearly tipping his glass in the process. Tanaka’s eyes darted to the girls and back, and it was just then that Souda began to pick up on the connection. He narrowed his eyes at him.

Something  definitely  strange was going on here, and he was going get to the bottom of it if the princess was involved.

He exhaled and lowered his head, keeping his voice down to a breathy whisper as he kept Sonia in his sights. “…Alright. Fine. I don’t know what’s going on here, but this better be important. Sonia’s watch-”

“I know.”

Tanaka’s quick interjection caught him off guard and it took him a few moments to process his answer. He tilted his head in. “So… downstairs? In the lobby, right? Soon-ish?”

“Correct,” he affirmed. “My time is precious. Do not waste it.”

He squinted at his classmate, who upon seeing Hinata coming back from the kitchen, pushed himself off the table and whirled around towards the exit. Hinata managed to snag a quick glimpse of the breeder’s black coat billowing behind him like a cape as he descended the stairs before sitting back down at the table with his cup in hand.

He turned his attention back to Souda. “…Was Tanaka just over here? What’d he want?”

“N-Nothin’,” he stammered. “Just the usual junk, I dunno. Elder gods. You know how he is.” He rubbed at his temple.

“I see.”

As they continued eating, Souda snuck a glance over to the girl’s table once more to see if Sonia was still paying attention, and was a bit dismayed to see that she wasn’t. He conversed with Hinata for a few more minutes, but since Tanaka wouldn’t wait forever, he shoveled the rest of his breakfast into his mouth and hoisted himself up from the table to attend to his meeting. It was now or never.

Hinata lifted his head up towards him. “Where are you headed so soon?”

He froze. “I, uh, got something I’m workin’ on in my room! I totally forgot,” he explained, toying nervously with the zipper on his jumpsuit. “So yeah. That’s it. I’ll see you later!”,

He paused for a moment, since everyone and their mother knew Souda was the world’s worst liar, but decided not to press the issue. “Alright. Don’t get into too much trouble.”

With everyone else in the room in no hurry to finish breakfast, it would hopefully give the two boys ample time to discuss whatever the other guy had brewing in his head. The connection with Sonia was first and foremost on Souda’s mind, whatever it was. He had the slightest idea that her and Tanaka had something going on between them, but to keep his own sanity, didn’t imagine it was anything beyond spending some innocent time together. Playing with hamsters, he told himself. Just that and nothing more. Of course.

Souda hurled himself down the stairs, landing on both feet, and spun around the corner where he was relieved to see that Tanaka was still waiting patiently. He was leaning against the wall near the staircase with his mug in hand.

“I see you’ve escaped from the madness,” Tanaka greeted him, throwing back the remainder of his now-lukewarm coffee and setting it on the ledge. “I must say, I am surprised an entity such as yourself was able to make it here as fast as you did. I was convinced that time moved slower for your type, or perhaps, didn’t exist at all.”

Souda took a few aggressive steps toward the breeder, his face scrunched into a bitter sneer, though Tanaka did not seem phased in the slightest. He kept his voice down. “Alright, I’m here, okay? You better tell me what’s goin’ on with this, because I don’t like people keepin’ secrets from me, and I  really don’t like people wasting my time. I saw you lookin’ over at Sonia’s table, what’s she got to do with this?”

His lips curled into a wry smile. “Ah, you were able to perceive something beyond the surface of this realm? Perhaps I have underestimated your abilities after all, for someone who sees the world through eyes of glass.”

“Yeah, yeah… cut the fancy talk and tell it to me straight,” he said.

He took a deep breath, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, and lowered his voice. “Now, before I reveal to you what lies beyond the veil, I must issue a warning.”

“…Tanaka, come on.”

He cast him an irritated glance before moving on. “First and foremost… I must warn you that what you are about to hear may threaten to consume your soul and plunge your mind into infinite darkness. Prepare now, before it is too late.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, ignoring his warning as pure gibberish. "Just tell me.”

“…Secondly, I must inform you that the words I am about to speak did not crawl from the depths of my mind, as wretched a place as it may be. As a disclaimer, this idea was not mine.” Souda nodded slowly.

Tanaka seemed hesitant to proceed, turning his head towards the ground in a moment of uncharacteristic weakness for a man who was normally the very pinnacle of confidence. Souda didn’t have a clue what was going on and even less of an idea of what he was about to hear from him, but it had to be something important if he was this adamant about telling him.

He was growing impatient. “… Does this have something to do with Sonia? Hey, answer me!” 

Tanaka stood in silence for a few more moments, taking deep, steady breaths as his classmate grew increasingly irritated by his stalling. Finally, he jerked his head back at Souda, who was taken aback to see the breeder’s face was now tinted a guilty shade of pink. 

“W-What is this?”

He inhaled and braced himself for the inevitable reaction. “The princess would like to...  request  of you… to, ah… accompany us…”

He perked up as Tanaka stumbled through his speech, but he was in no way mentally prepared for what was about to be asked.

“…in, ah… an evening of mortal affairs…” He could barely hold eye contact as his last few words trailed off.

Souda gave him a blank stare. “Huh?” The implication of his message flew right over his head.

Tanaka, frustrated that his meaning wasn’t getting across, had hoped that someone like Souda would have gotten the picture by now so he wouldn’t have to explain it. He exhaled loudly, trying to reconfigure the sentence in his head. He puffed himself up as much as he could muster to repeat his statement, his arms hugged even more tightly around his chest.

“…The lady of darkness would like to request that you  accompany us in her  dwelling  tomorrow evening.” The emphasis was intended to tip him off.

“Sonia’s… inviting me over?” he asked, an expression of pure bewilderment painted on his face.  As much as Souda pined after the princess, she had barely even acknowledged his presence on the island, and a request like this came completely out of left field. His heart rate picked up at the notion. “Wait… you said ‘us’, right? I mean… for what?”

Tanaka furrowed his brow and spoke at a low rumble. “…Souda. Don’t make me say it.”

The message was  almost processing, but was getting sent through his brain as a sort of “does not compute” error. One could just about hear the gears clicking in his mind as he attempted to put the pieces together. It was almost there, so close, but some part of it just didn’t make sense to him. The mere concept made his face contort, if this request actually was what he thought it might be, and he was beginning to break out into a nervous sweat as he tugged at his collar. The fog was clearing.

“H-Hold up…” he said, his voice faltering. “You’re asking me… if I want to join  you … and Sonia… i-in…”

Tanaka nodded perceptively.

Souda’s face was well beyond pink and had gone straight to a deep shade of red, so many disorganized emotions thrashing about within him that he was drawing a complete blank over how to even respond to such a wild proposal. Of all the things in the world, this was not the thing he expected to hear when he got out of bed this morning. All at once, it was simultaneously the worst and greatest thing he’d ever been asked. 

“Wh-what… what… I-I don't...” he stammered, pulling at his collar, then appeared to come to his senses. “… WHY are standing right by the stairs where people could hear us?! Get over here!” He leapt behind Tanaka and shoved him over in the corner near the receptionist’s desk, much to the other’s dismay. He jerked away from Souda and spun around as soon as they were in position, pressing his back up against the wall to speak.

“So…?" he asked calmly.

Souda waved his arms in front of him. “No way, no way, NO WAY!! Why are  YOU asking me this?! What the hell?!” he snarled through gritted teeth, trying his best to keep his voice down but failing quite spectacularly.

“Might I remind you, I am only the messenger, and you are free to decline at any time,” Tanaka replied, his cheeks still noticeably flushed in contrast to his usual pale complexion. It was obvious that Souda was going have an intense reaction to the proposal, but there was not much he could have done to prepare for it. He kept his eyes towards the staircase to make sure no one would catch them during their heated exchange.

“Wait, are you saying  Sonia  put you up to this?” he asked. “Why isn’t she down here asking me this, if that’s true?! I don’t wanna hear this from you! How do I know that this isn’t just some big setup that ends with me being the laughingstock of the entire island?”

He readjusted his scarf, which had become ruffled after he had been so gently shoved to the other side of the room. “I can assure you, there is no ill will behind this request. I was simply told to bring this to your attention in place of the dark lady due to the fact that she didn’t wish to be seen discussing with you in private. It would keep any suspicions at bay.”

Souda’s world was already shattering and his explanation wasn’t exactly helping. He continued to shake his head, as none of it was making any sense. “Why me, of all people? I mean, I’m not complainin’, but...” He was aware at this point that he was probably not one of Sonia’s favorite people, as much as it destroyed him to admit that to himself. Still… Sonia asking specifically for  him?  Something didn’t feel right.

“She stated that you would likely be most receptive to the idea, as opposed to any of the other fiends, given our other options,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “…If I am allowed to reveal it to you, our second choice was Hinata.”

He froze. “Whoa, whoa, whoa…  Hinata ? Seriously?” he said, distracted from the issue for a moment. “If it were up to me, I would think you’d wanna take someone built more like Nidai, y’know. I-I mean, it’s not like I was thinkin’ about it, because I wasn’t. I’m just sayin’.”

Tanaka gave him a questionable look.

“F-forget it! Still, I mean, you don’t think this is totally weird? Me,  you, and Sonia? Two dudes and one girl?” he asked.

“It doesn’t need to be ‘weird’, if you would not be so stubborn about it, you fool. It is simply three humans satisfying the needs of their earthly vessels. It is a perfectly natural thing.”

Souda shook his head vigorously. “…Ugh! If I end up agreeing to this nonsense for some stupid reason, I don’t ever want to hear a sentence like that while we’re at it!”

“…Am I detecting  a hint that you might be considering accepting our proposal?” he asked, straightening himself out against the wall.

“N-No! Don’t be jumping to conclusions here!” he said. “What I’m sayin’ is, can’t we negotiate some terms here? Like, what if we took turns or somethin’?”

He looked him straight in the eyes. “Sonia has informed me that she knew you would ask, and she declines such an offer.”

Souda groaned and clutched at his beanie, pacing around in a small circle. “…Fuck! You’re makin’ this awfully difficult, you know!”

“The purpose of this is to have all three of us at the same time, you realize. The princess wished to mix things up in the bedroom.” Upon the realization of what he had just revealed to Souda, it was already too late to retract his statement.

The mechanic looked like he was about ready to explode. He had somehow managed to delude himself into thinking that this was the first time for all three of them. “Wait, wait, wait, hold up…” he began, his pointed eyebrows drawn down in rage as he took another series of aggressive steps towards Tanaka, his volume escalating rapidly. “…Did you just say ‘mix things up’? Are you implying that not only have you and Sonia been  totally  doing it, but you’ve been doing it so much that you’re  BORED?! ”

“S…Souda, for god’s sake, keep your voice down!” he growled, pulling his scarf up to hide his now red-hot face while keeping his eyes turned towards the stairs to watch out for any eavesdroppers who might be interested in overhearing such a scandalous conversation taking place in the hotel lobby. To Souda, it might as well have been his own personal watergate.

“Oh my god!  OH my god! Tanaka! What the fuck?!”

He held his hands up in an attempt to subdue him. “…I am not delving any further into that statement! I informed you that what you were about to hear would cast your mind into the abyss, and you did not heed the warning!”

Souda spun around and flopped into the nearest lounge chair, burying his face into his hands. He groaned. “I’ve never been so conflicted in my life, you know this? I don’t even know what to tell ya. I’m numb. I can’t even cry. You've ruined me.”

“Oh, enough. Consider it this way…” he began, approaching Souda as calmly as he could. “It would be the two of us enjoying Sonia’s company together, as a sort of mutual interest of ours. There need not be any ulterior implications.”

He looked up from his sweaty palms. “Yeah, I bet you’ve really been ‘enjoying Sonia’s company’ lately, haven’t you…?”

“Souda, I...!” The two of them whipped their heads towards the staircase upon hearing footsteps headed in their direction. Souda panicked, scanning the room as fast as he could in search of a spot to hide, and ended up throwing himself over the back of his chair onto an adjacent couch and yanking his hat down to cover his face. Tanaka took a few faltering steps backwards and pressed himself against the wall, trying his best to act casual, though all the two boys had just accomplished was making themselves look as suspicious as humanly possible.

Tanaka breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the pair of red dress shoes of appear at the top of the stairs. The delicate figure took a few steps down, stopping halfway to examine the scene.

“…Is everything quite alright?”

He tilted his head to one side. “It could be proceeding more smoothly, I admit.”

Sonia reached the bottom of the stairs and scanned the room. “Where is Souda-san?”

A pair of pink eyes popped out from behind the side of the couch. The presence of Sonia all but confirmed that this was real and not just an elaborate ruse, but in the back of his mind he still suspected this was some kind of messed-up fever dream that he would wake up from any second. Tanaka turned his head towards the other and back at Sonia, shrugging.

She wandered over to the breeder with her hands clasped behind her back, the air of innocence about her slowly dissipating. She situated herself in front of him. “I thought I may have heard some raised voices down here. I was hoping I would not need to get involved, but I wanted to see if everything was okay.”

Tanaka shifted anxiously at this statement, knowing what Souda had been yelling about just a minute earlier. “...Were you able to make out any of it?”

“No, nothing exact, do not worry,” she said, relieving some of his tension. “You must have asked ‘ it’ , I presume?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And did you proceed over the terms?”

He looked away. “...I was not able to make it quite that far.”

Her lidded eyes gave her an air of deviousness, though her voice was as sweet as ever. “The others will be a few more minutes, so we will have a little time to talk things over if need be, but we should not waste a second."

“It may be inevitable, I am afraid."

Sonia turned towards the couch. “You may come out, Souda-san!”

He let out an inaudible whine and crawled out from his hiding spot, dragging his feet over to where the couple was stationed. He steeled himself for the encounter. Here she was, the pure, angelic Super High-School Level Princess, about to discuss the idea of having a threesome with the two boys. The word sounded so dirty in his head with her standing right in front of him. She looked down her nose at him, making it clear that she meant business.

He chuckled nervously. “H-Hey, Miss Sonia! Funny seeing you h-”

“Souda-san,” she said, causing him to yelp. “Is it true that you are not cooperating?”

He shook his head. “N-no, it’s not that! I just… y’know… I didn’t think he was serious, but-”

“I would not send Tanaka-san to lie to you, Souda,” she said, her voice firm.

“O-Of course not! I never had any doubts!”

“I see…” she said, holding a pensive hand up to her chin. “I take it you understand the offer? But before you even consider accepting, I must lay forth some rules. I do not wish to be rude, but this is for your benefit as well as ours.”

“What… kinda rules?” He swallowed, his throat dry. He had a lot of questions he would have liked to bring up at that moment, but didn’t wish to interrupt her as she spoke lest she deny him right then and there.

She took a single step towards him. “First, as we are extending this invitation out of the kindness of our hearts, we have the right to retract it at any time. If you do not agree to all of the conditions, you may not join us.”

This made him nervous. “…Conditions?” This was a little bit more than he thought he was signing up for.

“Yes, that is correct,” she stated. “As a one-time arrangement, there will be a zero tolerance policy in effect for any unsavory advances. If you step out of line, you will be shown the door. Is this clear?"

Clear as vodka. "Y-Yes."

“Secondly, as a mutual engagement between the three of us, you must consent with  everyone in the bedroom, not just you and I, and I do not wish to hear a single complaint about it. Understood?”

Souda made a face and cast a quick glance at Tanaka, who glared at him back. “…Do I have to touch him?”

Sonia’s expression softened. “No, I suppose you do not need to do anything you are not comfortable with. This is about our enjoyment, is it not? We do not intend to be needlessly cruel.” This statement eased his nerves somewhat. “…Unless, of course, needless cruelty is what you wish.”

His stomach fluttered. He was then quickly reminded again of the presence of the breeder, who had cleared his throat. He made brief eye contact with him once more and went back to Sonia. “…Do I have to  look at him?”

She offered him a tiny, disarming smile. “Yes, you might. But you may avert your eyes if you wish.”

His heart was beating like a bass drum in his chest, the thumping so intense that he was sure the other two could hear it. This was real, it was happening, and it was happening soon. He chased away the mixed emotions in his head and affirmed to himself that this is what he wanted, and if he passed up now, he would never get the opportunity again.

“Lastly,” she finished, her face growing serious once more, “you may not speak a word of this agreement to anyone else on the island. Not Hinata, not Nidai, not anyone. No exceptions. And if this rule in particular is broken, the punishment will be swift and severe.”

The final rule was dangerous. Souda mulled over his options, but the pull of his emotions was too powerful to resist. This was his chance, and perhaps the only one, one that could perhaps open the door for more opportunities in the future. He felt almost less like he was being asked to join them in the bedroom and more like he was interviewing for a job position, as the situation still didn’t feel real in his head.

“…Do you agree to the terms, Souda-san?”

This was it. His answer spilled out before he could even stop it. “Y-Yeah! I mean…”

“Most excellent!” she beamed. “Though I do apologize that our meeting was rushed under the circumstances. I do hope you understand.” It was too late to go back now.

“And I will remind you that you are free to change your mind at any time,” Tanaka tossed in at the end, causing the other male to sneer at him.

The wheels of fate were in motion. Before dispersing for good, they hurriedly discussed the when's-and-where’s of their little meeting. The following night, on the students’ second day off, the group had planned a sort of get-together on the beach to help them take their minds off their work. Upon nightfall, the three of them would leave one at a time about 10 minutes apart to avoid arousing any suspicion from the others — first Sonia to unlock her cabin, then Tanaka, then Souda. If anyone questioned them, the party was late enough that they could use “going to bed” as a solid enough excuse. This plan gave Souda the chance to hang out with Hinata as he had promised, and another night to mull over his decision if he needed it… or at least, another night to stay up and worry about it for hours on end.

Tanaka gave Souda one final side-eye before closing the glass doors behind him, leaving the mechanic alone in the lobby. The other students would be ready to come down from breakfast any minute. It was just then that the reality of his agreement was finally hitting him.

“ Oh, man…”he muttered, clutching the zipper on his jumpsuit.   “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”

 

  
  



	2. The Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this’ll all fit together in the end since it's all planned out, including the entirety of this chapter, which you should probably pay close attention to for spoiler reasons. Brace yourselves.

As one could have predicted, Souda had stayed up the entire night worrying about it.

The mechanic lugged himself up to breakfast that morning after Monokuma’s wake-up call, desperate for any sort of energy to put in his body after keeping himself up all night trapped with his thoughts. He had meticulously gone through every last detail of their plans: everything that could go wrong, everything that could go right, and everything in between. Sonia’s words from the day before, the ones about keeping their arrangement an utmost secret, continued to repeat themselves in his head:

“… _If this rule in particular is broken, the punishment will be swift and severe.”_

He rubbed his tired eyes upon entering the dining area. Regular caffeinated soda wasn’t gonna cut it for this one. He grabbed himself an entire carafe of coffee off of the table and proceeded to dump enough sugar and cream in it to put the average human into a coma – his horrendous coffee concoction had more sugar than most kool-aid recipes, which was about the only way he could tolerate it.

It hit all at once. The caffeine rush combined with his already sky-high anxiety gave him the shakes so bad he could hardly keep a steady fork in his hand as he ate his breakfast across from his soul friend. Even Hinata, who usually didn’t worry himself too much with Souda’s daily shenanigans, felt himself a little concerned about his odd behavior.

“…You sure you should have drank that whole thing?” he asked. “Am I gonna have to check you into detox or something later?”

“N-no! I-I’m just, uh… just getting pumped for tonight! That’s right! I-I mean, for the party, that is! Nothing else!” he sputtered, the words flying out of his mouth a mile a minute. He was vibrating like a motor in his chair.

On the other side of the dining room everyone else had taken their usual seats, including Sonia and Tanaka, who gave off no hints that there was anything even slightly unusual going on. The three had intended to keep their distance from one another to throw off any suspicions about their activities, which was especially important considering Souda was the absolute worst at keeping a secret. If it meant a chance with Sonia though, he'd give it his all. It was taking all of his self-control to not spill the details of his evening’s plans to Hinata, including the full, vivid, and incredibly obscene descriptions of the scenes he had stayed up the entire night dreaming up in his head. Sonia would end his life.

Once breakfast was over, Souda spent the next hour or so bouncing off the walls while Hinata struggled to keep him reigned in. Once the effects finally wore down (much to Hinata’s sweet relief), he dragged his body back to his cottage and promptly came crashing down from his caffeine high with the power of a thousand suns colliding. He fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed, and in the blink of an eye, the first half of the day was come and gone. He was now just that much closer to the event which he was both looking forward to more than anything and dreading with his entire being.

Souda lifted his head up later that afternoon with the sensation of someone who had just awoken from centuries of cryosleep. The light filtered in through his closed shades, though they didn’t quite cover his window all the way, and a beam of light had managed to creep in and stream itself across his face. He rolled over, lying in bed for a few more minutes before forcing himself to get up and face the day.

“…Better get ready, I suppose,” he mumbled, looking at his clock. The party would be starting in just a few short hours.

He knew he was going to need to fix up his image if he were going to stand toe-to-toe with Tanaka in the bedroom. Not wanting to be one to disappoint the princess, he plodded over to Koizumi’s cabin with his yellow jumpsuit crumpled up in his arms (not to worry – he wasn’t naked) and knocked a few times on her door – luckily, she was home, and reluctantly agreed to do his laundry despite scolding him for not coming sooner. Koizumi taking care of his clothes was nothing unusual, and she usually pestered him about it anyways because she couldn’t stand the sight of his dirty suit. She did, however, find it a little strange that he had also requested to borrow her blowdryer.

On the way back to his cottage, he ran into Togami, who appeared to be carrying a few things of his own over to the beach to set up. Souda picked up his pace in an attempt to avoid having to strike up a conversation while in his vulnerable state, but it was already too late. Togami had stopped abruptly and changed his direction to approach him.

“Good evening, Souda,” he called out.

“H-Hey! What’s up?” he answered. As always, Togami was the party mastermind, and he had been the one to lay out the plans for the evening. It wasn’t anything too extraordinary this time, but it was enough to keep their spirits up in between all of their hard work.

He eyed Souda quizzically. “…What brings you out here like this?”

The mechanic was rarely seen without his jumpsuit on, donning only a white t-shirt and shorts in the humid heat of the afternoon. He began to sweat, but not because of the temperature – there was nothing worse than being interrogated by Togami, _especially_ on a day like this. “I-I’m uh… getting ready, y’know! For your party! I can’t just show up to an event hosted by a guy like Togami lookin’ like I just rolled out of bed!”

“…It is only a simple beach party. I didn’t have any expectations of you at all, to be quite honest,” he said. “Although, I _do_ hope you are not just getting out of bed at this time of day.”

“I-I didn’t, I swear! I mean–”

He turned his head to one side. “…And just what is _that_ you’ve got?”

Souda had been hiding the hairdryer behind his back, though doing a poor job at it because the cord was dragging behind him like a tail. “I-It’s uh… I was just gonna borrow for a little bit it to see how it works! Y’know, because I was tryin’ to look nice and all! Heh heh!” He gave him a crooked smile.

“Interesting… that doesn’t seem like you at all,” he commented. “Unless of course, you’ve got something _else_ going on tonight that you would like me to know about.”

He was sure his heart stopped at that moment. He needed to get out of there and fast before Togami made him spill the details, because if anyone could force it out of him, it’d be that guy. “I-I uh… I don’t…”

“What’s that, now? Speak up.”

“…I gotta go! I got stuff to do!” He bolted before the heir could put a word in edgewise and sprinted all the way back to his cottage, slamming the door behind him and deadbolting it to be safe. He leaned against the wall to catch his breath. Keeping his secret might be even more difficult than he thought. Regardless, he was safe in his room now, and it was time to get the ball rolling.

\----

A knock came to his door a while later, and despite Souda expecting the visitor, the noise still managed to startle him. He opened the door a crack to see Hinata standing outside in his swim trunks.

“Oh! It’s you!” Souda exclaimed, throwing the door wide open.

“Of course it’s me, who else were you expecting?” he asked. Upon greeting his friend, the first thing he became aware of right away was that the mechanic didn’t reek of gasoline for once. In the time frame before Hinata showed up, Souda had taken not one, but _two_ showers, and a third to rinse off just to be sure. His hair, normally a greasy, tangled bird’s nest, had curled into pleasant waves. Unfortunately, most of his effort was hidden under his beanie, leaving only some loose pink locks hanging out from beneath it. Hinata did deduce there was something a little different about his appearance, but couldn’t quite figure out what. He decided not to push it.

Regardless, the two paired up for the short jaunt over to the beach on the first island not too far from the hotel. The distinctive, smoky aroma of the various grilled meats and vegetables being prepared by Hanamura on the barbeque caught their attention far before they even reached the water. The chef had been thrilled at the opportunity to prepare his classmates some authentic island cuisine, and over the course of the day had been all over the place gathering the proper supplies for his dinner. Togami, of course, heartily approved.

The sun was already low in the sky, but a protective tent-like shade canopy had been set up in the sand as a sort of central meeting place where all the snack and drinks had been arranged, and around them was a number of torches intended to keep the place lit up when the darkness began to settle. As usual, Rocketpunch Market was a great source for all their random needs. The students had already begun arriving at the beach in small groups.

Tanaka and Sonia, who were in separate areas, both cast Souda a quick glance as he arrived alongside Hinata. He had no idea if he was supposed to go over and greet them, or what. Was he supposed to pretend to ignore them all night? He flashed them an awkward toothy grin and a wave, to which Tanaka responded with a hand up and Sonia a tiny polite smile of her own. This was uncomfortable already.

Luckily, the thought was interrupted when Nidai and Mioda, an odd pairing to be seen together in itself, skipped onto the beach with a large cooler in tow. The duo could be seen grinning ear-to-ear, apparently thrilled about whatever it was that they had in their possession. Everyone’s heads turned in their direction as the two of them barreled forward with their treasure.

“Yoohoo~! You’ll never guess what Ibuki found!”

“Gyahaha! You can thank us later!”

The two lugged the container over to the canopy and plunged it into the sand, popping the lid open to reveal the sacred contents to their classmates. The students squeezed around in a tight group to see what the commotion was about. There, lying before them, was clearly a large chunk of Monokuma’s personal booze stash, the very same one that he made his signature neon blue cocktail that he could be seen with every morning on his announcement. How they managed to escape with it was anyone’s guess, though Mioda, the island’s resident expert lock-breaker, was the most probable culprit.

Hinata was first to open his mouth. “…How did you get that?!”

“We walked in and took it, of course! There’s no rules against trespassing _or_ stealing on this island!” she winked. Monokuma would likely be having a word or two with them later, rules be damned.

The reaction to their hoard was mixed, with most of the students looking down upon it as though they had just stolen the Arkenstone from Smaug’s lair. Kuzuryuu was most displeased at their haul and swiftly scolded the group about their flagrant disregard for rules and the fact that they were all far too underage to be indulging in such adult fare. The others, after a short debate amongst themselves, turned their eyes to Togami, whose word was law about all things party.

He inhaled through his nose. “…Fine. I’ll allow it. However, I will be keeping an eye on everyone to make sure nothing gets out of hand. Pace yourselves.” A number of the students gave a few hoots and hollers upon the decision and began to plunder the cooler of its contents like a bunch of ravenous hyenas.

“Look! Ibuki grabbed his little umbrellas, too!” the musician shouted over the top of them, spinning one of the frilly little things around in her thumb and forefinger. Nidai rewarded her with an exuberant whoop and a double high-five. Now it was a party.

Now, Souda didn’t consider himself much of a delinquent by any means, and didn’t have a whole lot of experience with alcohol except a few experimental instances here and there. In this situation, however, it was a welcome relief – he could at least get enough in him to take some of the edge off. After nearly everyone else had gotten theirs, Hanamura was asked to mix him the sugariest, brightest beverage possible (as some might consider, “the girliest”), and while the chef gave him a grimace, he obliged.

Out of nowhere, he gave a passing comment to Souda while the others were out of earshot. His voice was low and honeyed. “…My, my, Souda, you’re looking awfully fine this evening. On the prowl tonight, are we? Out to grab yourself one of these fine vixens to take home? Ufufu, my thoughts exactly!”

If he had had his drink by now, he would have spit it out. Hanamura’s crude remark caught him so offguard that he didn’t even know what to say to it. There was no way that he could have known about their plans… could he? And _how was this guy so comfortable saying this stuff out loud?_ The guy had a sort of sixth sense when it came to these types of things.

“N-No! Nothing like that!”

“Oh, then perhaps someone of the masculine variety, then? Ah, don’t worry, I’m not one to judge. You might consider me an open-minded individual.”

“… _NO!!_ ” he snapped, his face turning red. “It’s none of your business! Just gimme that, would ya?!”

“Fine, fine,” he replied. “But I’ll be keeping an eye on these pretty ladies tonight. If you need any advice, feel free to ask the expert. Or shall I say, the _sex_ pert? Hoh hoh!”

He snatched his drink from the tiny chef and hurried himself away from the canopied area, where the others were milling about on the beach. Hinata, gratefully, wasn’t too far away, and Souda decided to play it safe and stick by his side. The guy was a certified professional at getting him out of tight situations and would probably come in handy tonight if things went awry.

To Souda's slight irritation, Kuzuryuu had also made a point to stick near Hinata whenever he could, as Hinata was easily one of the tamer students he could hang out with. Hinata sure didn't mind, though, and the two even split some idle chatter here and there as the night went on, even if the kid refused to go swimming with the others to avoid getting his suit wet (and by extension, having to take it off), so jumping in the water ended up being the easiest way to get rid of him. An attempt by Souda to make conversation was met with a terse "Don't talk to me, I'm not here for you", but despite this, Kuzuryuu was never very far away for much of the night.

Souda couldn’t help but keep an eye on his two other co-conspirators for much of the evening. He wanted more than anything to be able to walk up to Sonia and just play it cool, but she had made it explicitly clear that she intended to keep their association a secret. To reveal to the public that the Super High School Level Princess was fooling around with not one, but _two_ men, and out of wedlock on top of it, would destroy her innocent image and potentially threaten her SHSL title as bestowed by Hope’s Peak Academy. It was unknown whether the academy possessed the ability to strip students of their titles, but if not, there was a first for everything.

Tanaka was another story. It was tough not to be distracted when the only thing Souda could think whenever he stumbled past the guy was something along the lines of ‘ _man, I’m gonna see that guy’s dick tonight’,_ and could only hope that the other wasn’t thinking the same thing. Tanaka gave him a side-eye as the thought crossed his head once more, making Souda now worried that the breeder could read minds, among his other talents.

A few more of the girls had taken notice of his appearance as the night went on. They also seemed to have a sort of sixth sense when it came to these things, though not quite on the same wavelength as Hanamura, and for the most part they were just a little bit disturbed by the sudden image change. He was beginning to think maybe he shouldn’t have messed with it at all.

Tsumiki approached him first, accompanied by Koizumi and Saionji. “…S-Souda-san, your hair is very pretty tonight!” she stuttered, before soon shaking her head from side to side. “…I-I’m sorry! I’ve said something weird! Please don’t be angry with me!”

“You’re fine, you’re fine!” he said. “Thanks, I guess. All I did was wash it, heh heh!” She began to fret at his non-angry response, but was quickly calmed down by Hinata, who was standing nearby.

“Who cares? He still looks disgusting as long as he’s wearing that pig-ugly jumpsuit of his!” Saionji added, as charming and hospitable as ever. Koizumi gave her a sharp elbow to remind her to mind her manners, to which the little girl responded by sticking out her tongue.

Before long, the sun had dipped below the horizon, and the torches on the beach had been ignited to give them enough light to continue their get-together. Their soft orange glow was the only thing illuminating the beach on the moonless night, and with everyone sufficiently loosened up, it would be relatively easy to leave unnoticed at this point. It was about this time that Sonia was supposed to duck out and go unlock her cottage. Souda had been so distracted that he had almost forgotten, and now worried that he had missed his cue, spun his head around for any sign of her or Tanaka.

He stepped back, excusing himself from his small circle of friends to feign the appearance that he was going back to the canopy for another snack. He returned to the table that was set up under the tent, where a huge, colorful array of food was still laying out for them to indulge in. Even Owari, who had been going at it with her best effort, couldn’t finish the feast laid out before her despite returning every few minutes with renewed vigor. That said, most of the good stuff had been picked over by now.

Souda pretended to grab a few of the leftover items while scanning the crowd before him, though it was nearly impossible to make out the silhouettes of the students clumped together. He cursed under his breath. Of course he missed the signal, didn’t he? Souda would never forgive himself if he had blown his one chance.

He stuck his neck out to allow himself a somewhat better view, beginning to mutter some unkind words to himself again, only to be interrupted by a nudge on his arm which nearly caused him to jump through the roof.

Tanaka, whose dark figure had almost completely blended into the background, had positioned himself adjacent to him while he wasn’t paying attention. He spoke at a deep whisper, lowering his head to Souda’s ear. “Our arbiter has departed.”

“…You think I’m some kinda idiot?” he quipped. The princess had evidently slipped away without saying a word to anyone, masking her escape under the cover of night. Upon this news, the plan was now in motion.

“I’ll be taking my leave shortly, if you would care to follow soon after."

Souda nodded. “Ten-four.”

“…And do not forget,” he finished, “it would be ideal if you left without making your absence known. Don’t be a fool.” Souda was very well aware of the last point. He swallowed and nodded again, knowing that if he was going to blow this at any point, it was going to be sometime soon.

Tanaka whirled around and disappeared into the shadows without saying another word. Souda turned his head back towards the remaining students, who would for sure notice that something was up if he left to get some food and never came back. With a bit of reluctance, he returned to the small circle of boys that had arranged themselves right on the shore, sans Hanamura (who had parked himself closer to the ladies, though they were well within earshot so that the other boys would be able to tell if there was any funny business going on) and Kuzuryuu (who they invited, but he refused, being the only sober individual left on the island paired with the fact they were much too close to the water for his liking). Souda hung close to Hinata and kept himself uncharacteristically quiet in fear of accidentally saying something he would regret. The alcohol in his system, while not anything extreme, was making it all the more difficult to make any rational decisions.

Before long, his ten minute waiting period was up – but he had now hit a wall. Souda hadn’t yet figured out how he was supposed to slip away from the group without raising any eyebrows. Attempting to be sneaky like the other two had, he took a few creeping steps back to see if he could make a break for it. Unfortunately, neon yellow wasn’t an ideal color for blending into the cover of night.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Souda froze. Hinata and the other boys had all focused their attention on him, their silence deafening as they waited for his answer. He worked down his list of responses in his brain that he had set up for this very situation, only to settle on the one the trio had agreed upon the day before. “I-I’m, uh… I was just gonna go to bed, I think! Gettin’ kinda tired, that’s all!”

Nidai, who had clearly had quite enough to drink himself, raised his voice up to a near-shout. “….How could you be tired when you slept all day? C’mon, stay a while!” he bellowed, holding up his beverage.

Shit. He didn’t even consider that fact. It wasn’t like him at all to leave an event early, even if he was tired. He was certain the others were wondering the same thing, but he could barely make out their faces in the dim lighting.

“You know, we do seem to be missing a few individuals already, now that you mention it. I haven’t seen Sonia around in a while. Did she go to bed too?” Komaeda asked innocently. The boys gave Souda the look.

He felt a knot form in his stomach. They were gonna figure him out. They were gonna figure out his secret plan, and then Sonia was gonna kill him. Tanaka would probably join her, that bastard. All this because the poor boy just wanted to get super laid.

“…You feeling alright?” Hinata asked. “You’ve been seeming a little out of it these last couple days.”

Even though he may not have realized it, his soul friend had just given him the perfect excuse. Souda knew that if he hung around any longer trying to explain himself, his façade would be blown for good. “Y-Yeah, that’s it! I’m not feeling so hot, so I’m gonna go lay down for a while.”

Hinata nodded, though his intuition still told him something wasn’t right. “…Sure. Just let us know if you need anything, alright? I don’t know what kinda weird island diseases they have out here, so if it gets worse, tell someone, okay?”

“Got it. See ya!” he waved, and sprinted off a little too energetically for someone who just claimed they were both tired and not feeling well. Souda didn’t care – he had managed to successfully escape, and that was all that mattered in his mind. He had dodged every obstacle that stood in his path today and now nothing was going to stop him on his quest.

He ran as fast as his legs could take him, past the hotel gates and over to where Sonia’s cottage stood. In the windows one could see only the smallest hint of light coming from within, which could only mean one thing – they were inside. He positioned himself in front of her door, taking deep breaths as he stood in complete silence.

Now was the moment of truth.


	3. The Moment of Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's too late to go back now. I've dug this hole and I will lie in it. This chapter was probably the hardest and it was actually done like a week ago, but I couldn't stop fucking around with it so here it is finally. I'm really looking forward to the next few chapters though.
> 
> ((send me to church))

Gundam Tanaka, the world’s greatest enigma, had more knowledge of the mechanics of animal reproduction than any human on earth had any business knowing. In earning his prestigious title, the breeder had singlehandedly brought back a species from the brink of extinction and could probably make any two living creatures on earth mate with each other if he so desired it. But with great power comes great responsibility, and luckily, Tanaka was a rather modest man in regards to that aspect with no intention to use his power for evil. It is unknown whether any of that ability was tapped into when they arranged to invite Souda into the bedroom, though if Tanaka _did_ actually have a hand in it, he’d never admit to it in a thousand years – if asked, he would likely say he was possessed by demons.

However, as the Super High School Breeder, Tanaka had usually approached such activities with an “all work and no play” mindset. He and Sonia’s first few takes were stiff and formal. It had taken her gentle coercion to loosen him up a bit and make himself feel more comfortable, and they found that as the sessions continued, the more he was enjoying himself. But as accommodating as Sonia was, they had both found themselves to be dominant forces in the bedroom which sometimes caused the two of them to butt heads.

The idea to bring in a third party was in order to try and balance them out. In actuality, there was a great load of heated debate involved in the process of whom to approach first to make the request. A few of their classmates were too boisterous and would never be able to keep it a secret, a few had grating personalities that clashed with their own, a few more creeped them out, and a great majority would scoff at the very notion of a threesome with _these_ two. Only Souda, who was desperate enough, would be the most willing to keep a secret if it meant getting with Sonia even just once. He was also very likely the best choice to offset their dominant personalities. Through context clues or the occasional line he would drop (“If I’m a total fucking pig, you can say so!”) it was speculated that he would lean heavily on the submissive side.

And to be fair, they were right – Souda did have a major dominance kink, and it was one of the reasons he found himself so attracted to the princess to begin with. Sonia was looking forward to getting this out of him, since she knew she would certainly have him wrapped around her finger for much of the evening. He wouldn’t dare disobey any request. They were also aware that he was skittish, however, so they were going to have to make an attempt to be as welcoming as possible. Sonia didn’t care much for his personality, but perhaps he would be fun to include _just_ this once.

Now their theory was about to be put to the test.

Souda stood outside the door to Sonia’s cottage for what felt like an eternity, bracing himself for whatever he was about to encounter when he walked into her room. He prayed to every force in the universe that they hadn’t started without him. With beads of sweat forming at his temples even in the cooling evening air, he swallowed his fear and brought a hand up to the door to knock.

One second passed. No answer. Two seconds. No answer. _Why were they taking so long?_

Instead of being let in, he heard a muffled voice from inside. He put his ear to the door.

_“Go around! Back door!”_

He pulled away. “What?! Go around?” he muttered under his breath. His eyes turned to the side of the cottage, where a thin strip of aging wood that formed the base of the building connected the front walkway to the back porch. He was sure this was an additional layer of precaution to make sure he wasn’t seen going in... or was it to stall him, because they _had_ started?

Either way, the journey to the back appeared to be somewhat treacherous, since everyone’s cottages had been built over water on stilts – shallow water, but water nonetheless. With an exasperated sigh, Souda stepped onto the crackling wood and shimmied his way around, careful not to lose his footing. Halfway around, the dim glow of light from a side window partially illuminated his face as he passed. He was tempted to take a peek inside to see what they were doing without him, but chose to duck under instead to avoid invoking the wrath of Sonia. He hopped over the railing upon reaching his destination, and after giving a passing check to his dark surroundings, he slid over to the rear door and placed his hand upon the latch. Without further ado, he cracked the door open with a quiet _*click*_ and slipped inside.

Prepared for the worst, he rounded the corner, and there on the couch were his two companions sitting together…

….doing absolutely nothing?

Sonia and Tanaka’s heads turned towards him as he walked wide-eyed out into her living area, the two of them pausing in the middle of their innocent conversation to acknowledge his arrival. Souda wasn’t quite sure what he expected, but somehow it wasn’t this. The scene before him was extraordinarily mundane. He felt like the first time entering Sonia’s bedroom for their special occasion should have arrived with some more pomp and circumstance, or music, or _something_. Maybe, just maybe, all the porn he’d seen in his life had been lying to him after all.

“Welcome!” she greeted, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, with no indication in her voice or demeanor that there was anything strange going on before he entered. She just sounded like normal, friendly Sonia. “…I see you have made it alright!”

“…Yeah, I did!” Souda said, trying his best to make it appear like he wasn’t sweating like a sinner in Satan’s abode. He was so petrified of making a fool of himself in front of her that he had no idea what to say, continuing with the most benign comment he could come up with. “Uhh… nice place you got here!”

Tanaka, who was sitting next to her with an ankle crossed over his knee, could be seen wearing a grin behind his muffler. “I see the veil of darkness has provided well for you, too? Most impressive… perhaps the legion of shadows has invited you to join their ranks!” Souda ignored his nonsense comment.

Sonia was absolutely delighted at his words. “Tanaka tells me he escaped by masking himself in the dark of the night!” she exclaimed. “He must have looked like an actual Japanese ninja! Isn’t that amazing?”

“Y-Yeah, I did too, actually!” Souda’s statement couldn’t have been further from the truth, but Sonia responded to it in a positive manner regardless. He did enjoy her boundless enthusiasm.

He advanced further into her room, taking in the sights of one of the few places on the island he’d never laid eyes on before. The inside of the cottage was flawless, truly a sight to behold. Everything in it was pure white and immaculately maintained, a room fit for a princess if he’d ever seen one. Compared to his own place that was littered with tools and engine parts, hers was nearly unrecognizable as the same type of room. The smell, too, was considerably more pleasant – a scent that was a bit more like fresh linens rather than stale motor oil. And considering Tanaka’s room smelled like a hamster cage, it was a welcome change for the breeder too.

Souda snapped his attention back towards them. “So… what have ya been doing in here this whole time?” The question came out more intrusive than he intended and he immediately regretted asking it.

“Just waiting, I suppose. But it is okay, we are very patient, aren’t we?” she said. Tanaka was leaning back with his arms crossed.

As far as Souda knew, all three of them had a few drinks in them by this point so it didn’t take much to get them going, which helped loosen the tension a little. Sonia, in particular, seemed considerably more uninhibited than usual in her manner of speaking, especially when addressing Souda. She continued rambling on about a few topics she was interested in, mostly whatever Tanaka had just been telling her before Souda arrived (much to the mechanic’s absolute joy, as you can imagine), embellishing her speech with some rather animated body language before the conversation was turned back to the subject on their minds by their anxious newcomer.

“So… you’ve never done this with like, two dudes, right? So that’s why we’re doin’ this? To, er..." his voice lowered, wrinkling up his nose, _"...mix things up?"_

“Indeed! I am very excited to try some of these new commoner activities! Until now, I have only heard rumors about such things, but now I will get to experience them firsthand!” she began. “I suppose I could have made the attempt back home, but that is… they are not quite as understanding, you see…” Her eyes turned to the floor as her last words trailed off.

“They’re not…?” Souda asked, scratching his cheek.

“Yes, that’s so…” she said. “In fact, according to our customs, a young, unmarried woman such as myself should not be engaging in such things at all, not to speak of doing so with multiple partners. That’s not to say I _haven’t_ had practice back home, but it is not public knowledge, you see.”

That was news to him, though he was fairly aware that Sonia wasn’t a virgin at this point. After the initial painful moment of another soul-crushing revelation, he shoved the thought to the back of his mind. “Seriously? So you’re like, breaking rules doing this?” Souda asked. “Are we talking the same Novoselic where 90% of your citizens watch a show called ‘Sunny Witch ♪ Esper Itou-chan’? They're _that_ uptight?”

“I am surprised you remembered the title since I have only stated it once, but yes, that is the case, I am afraid…” she said. “But I thought perhaps as a foreigner in this new place, I should not be bound by such laws. I am glad to have the freedom I do here with you all on this field trip, where I have the opportunity to do as I please without prying eyes around every corner. And… such activities _are_ quite fun, are they not?” With the corners of her lips curling into a smile, she turned her head to Tanaka, who looked away.

It was then that Souda noticed something _else_ beginning to take place in front of him.

One of Sonia’s hands delicately touched the breeder’s thigh and wandered inward, far too inward, and began caressing him right in front of him. Souda felt himself bristle – the scene was jarring to view as it was the first time he’d ever seen her touching another man in such a way, but he restrained his reaction.

“I… I see…” Souda said, brow raised, his eyes transfixed upon where her hand met his leg.

Sonia moved further in, to places which Souda preferred not to think about, and stopped there, stroking her fingers through his clothing. Tanaka's stoic expression faltered at that moment – he was clearly reacting to her touch. He loosened his crossed arms and arched his back up to sit straighter, his fingers clenched into the fabric of his sleeve, inhaling deeply through his nose.

This continued for a few long, agonizing seconds before he spoke up. “Then… I suppose we can begin the ritual, if you wish…”

She removed her hand from his thigh to stand up, and with a finger, beckoned Souda to come over. He did as he was told without a moment of delay, stumbling towards her like an excited puppy. He planted his feet in front of her, standing in absolute silence apart from the sound of his heart hammering through his chest, waiting for her to say something as his world seemed to stand still. Tanaka’s gaze was turned up at both of them to keep watch.

It was then, to Souda’s shock, that she hooked an arm around his back to pull him in, and in a second motion, thrust her other hand below his belt. The action nearly made him yelp. Her fingers shifted until she had gotten a suitable hold on the bulge in his pants and began stroking him through his clothing, just as she had done to Tanaka, soaking up his reaction as she touched him for the first time. Souda’s face turned a deep, guilty shade of red – Sonia was certainly aware of his obvious erection at this point, if she wasn’t already. His lips twitched.

“Souda-san,” she spoke softly, “…do you like following orders?”

He hesitated. “Y-Yes. I think.”

“Would you care to follow some orders?”

She increased the pressure, causing him to huff. “Y…Yes, Lady Sonia.”

She smiled and nodded, then moved both of her hands up to his shoulders to ease him down to his knees. Souda took the cue and lowered his body, feeling the heat rush to his face, among elsewhere in his body. If this was a dream, he was gonna be pretty pissed if he woke up now.

“Perfect,” she cooed, slipping his hat off and running her fingers through his hair. He basked in the sensation and closed his eyes to immerse himself in it, each stroke sending a wave of electricity down his spine. Her soft, patient voice calmed his nerves. “Now… why don’t we start here?”

As one of Sonia’s hands was brought to her skirt to move it out of the way, the other had paused at the back of Souda’s head and gently guided him forward, driving his nose into the frilly black fabric of her undergarments. His eyes immediately shot open. He could feel the heat emanating off of her, his own breath now hot and heavy, coming out almost as panting. Her abrupt action was interpreted by him as his signal to initiate. After coming back to his senses, he managed to fit in one tiny lick, but this motion was met with a tug at his hair.

“I did not say you could begin, Souda-san.” She was not angry, but stern. A very no-nonsense approach would be needed to deal with Souda's eagerness.

“…Sorry,” he apologized, his words muffled through her skirt. His widened eyes were angled up at her elegant figure, waiting desperately for the go-ahead.

She wasn’t about to offer her approval just yet. Instead, she clenched her fingers into his hair and pushed herself into him, grinding up on his nose and mouth with her hands on the back of his head. Her hips moved in steady rhythm as she reveled in her own pleasure, enjoying the feeling of power she held over him in his position. It was a rewarding sensation to be putting the mechanic to good use. Souda, in turn, followed her motions, pushing into her harder and allowing himself to take in the steadily increasing scent of her arousal. Tanaka tilted his head up, observing the scene in front of him with much interest. He brought a finger up to loosen the suffocating scarf around his neck – even a supreme lord of darkness could find himself succumbing to such a vivid display of female pleasure.

Sonia noticed Tanaka’s gaze and reddened face and momentarily halted her action, beckoning him to join them. He cleared his throat. “…I was beginning to think you might never ask.”

He rose to his feet and stepped over to her, where she then removed her hands from the boy at her waist and slid them around Tanaka. He grunted, unsure of how to position himself around the other male, but eventually placed an awkward arm around her back and leaned into her embrace. Souda was wedged precariously between them, with Tanaka's crotch much closer to his head than he would have liked it to be. He kept his nose buried under Sonia’s skirt.

As Sonia pulled him closer, Tanaka moved his head into her shoulders and placed a few gentle kisses up her neck, causing her to giggle. For someone who called themselves the Ascendant Ruler of Ice, his skin was rather soft. He trailed his lips up her chin before finally reaching her mouth and he locked in with her, thrusting his body into her chest with a rough motion. Souda, meanwhile, was stuck in between the two lovers as he waited for his next set of instructions. With a considerable degree of discomfort, he could tell Tanaka was already hard. The man was very nearly grinding himself on the back of his head, though whether or not it was intentional was anyone’s guess.

This continued for a few moments before Sonia remembered the presence of Souda, and pulled herself away from Tanaka to bring her attention back to the other boy. She brought her fingers back down to run them through his now-messy pink hair, brushing a few loose strands out of his face. He craned his head up at her and was met with a polite smile, her own pale face flushed a deep shade of pink.

“Okay,” she murmured, pulling the fabric of her panties aside. “You are free to proceed.”

Souda could feel his blood rushing as his mind processed the sight on front of him. Like everything else about her, the princess was flawless. This is what he’d been waiting for. With his newly-awarded freedom, the sexual energy that had been bottled up within him to this point was released like a torrent as he drove his face into her, lapping feverishly without the cloth barrier in place. His tongue rubbed flat against her repeatedly, taking in her taste, her scent, with nothing separating him from the girl now.

While he had assumed he was doing it right, he couldn’t see Sonia’s expression, and her face contorted at the rough treatment she was being given. She buried her face into Tanaka’s shoulder, hoping Souda would ease up, but he instead grew more vicious. She winced.

“Souda-san…” she breathed into Tanaka’s jacket. He didn’t hear her at first. “Souda-san!!”

He abruptly stopped as a hand was placed upon his forehead to push him away, a trail of wet spit trailing down the corner of his lips. Souda’s expression, upon seeing Sonia’s face, resembled that of a kicked dog.

She took a few heavy breaths. “Please, Souda-san, with restraint!”

He opened his mouth to apologize once more, deeply embarrassed at her scolding, but noticed she wasn’t listening to him as Tanaka had leaned into her and was whispering something inaudible into her ear. Sonia nodded, and broke away from the two boys to move back towards her bed. Souda gave the other boy the eye. _What did he say to her?_

Sonia sat back onto the sheets, removing her undergarments with a swift, graceful motion, and tossed them aside, crossing her legs in front of herself. Souda waited to see what she would say, but Tanaka stepped forward ahead of him. He didn’t dare protest this action. Upon his approach, Sonia moved a delicate hand up to caress his jawline as he leaned in over her. They both then turned their attention back to Souda, who hadn’t budged from where he was kneeling on the floor.

“You may come over here,” she said. Souda scrambled forward but stopped short of Tanaka, not wanting to invade his space.

Tanaka could be seen unraveling the scarf from his neck, looking positively alien without it, and dropping it into a pile on the floor. He knelt down in front of her legs, placing a hand on her thigh. Souda got the picture. He was already being replaced.

Sonia looked up at him, seeing his sorry face, and responded as though she could sense the defeat in his eyes. “…Souda-san, if it is okay, I would like you to watch how Tanaka-san performs. He is becoming quite skilled.”

 _Skilled?_ It should have been obvious to him that they’d been through this before, but for some reason it still surprised him. “A-Ah… alright…” He wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to watch another man please the girl in front of him, but since Tanaka had just watched him do the same thing, maybe he would be able to deal with it too. At the very least he could see what Sonia preferred, and then maybe he could find a way to do it better.

Tanaka hesitated, feeling the other male’s eyes boring a hole into the back of his head, and leaned in. A shaky hand pushed her legs aside. He cast a glance back before lowering himself, his lips grazing against her skin, planting soft kisses on both of her inner thighs. Her legs contracted as he shifted inward, moving closer until he had reached the outer lips of her labia. Sonia flinched – not because it was in any way unpleasant, but because she was so sensitive, her breathing coming in as short, shallow gasps. Tanaka gave her a few gentle licks as he worked his way further in, curving an arm around one of her legs for control, and used his other hand to keep her spread as he traced his tongue up her length.

This was certainly a side of Tanaka – well, both of them – that Souda had never seen before, and to be honest with himself, he couldn’t decide if he was loving the scene or hating it. His hand wandered down to the bulge in his jumpsuit, stimulating his own arousal as he watched Sonia receive from the other man. Despite this, he didn’t want to remain on the sidelines for much longer, and inched forward to where Sonia’s legs were dangling off the side of the bed, her toes curling through the fabric of her stockings. Keeping his eyes on the princess to gauge her response, he brought his lips up to the very tip of her foot and began to lick at her.

Sonia felt this, her initial reaction being to tell him to stop because she hadn’t instructed him to do so, but she let him continue as she realized the sensation wasn’t detracting from her enjoyment in any way. Instead, she now had both boys submitting to her for her absolute satisfaction and she could not have been more delighted. _Now_ she remembered why the threesome sounded like a good idea.

Tanaka proceeded to work around her, reaching the clit last, but did not tongue it directly – instead, he placed a few gentle kisses up the length of her slit, teasing her, before stopping at the tip. At her feet, Souda began to nip at her stockings, slowly dragging them off to get a better feel of her.  Sonia’s breathing became more labored as Tanaka played with her using only his lips, the anticipation driving her mad. His breath, too, was hot and heavy, his face reddening with the constriction in his pants growing tighter by the second. He steadily increased his pressure before giving her one good swipe of his tongue, pausing upon the top to suck and causing Sonia to gasp, the first time she’d vocalized out of pleasure that evening. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle the sound.

Without warning, she pulled away, leaving Tanaka with a look on his face similar to what Souda had on earlier. He lifted his head up. “…Is something wrong, she-cat?”

“No, you’re doing wonderful, both of you,” she said as she caught her breath, getting up on her knees and swiveling herself off of her bed. “…but I am afraid if we just continue like this I will not be able to last long enough for you two. Shall we switch?”

It was nothing that either of the two boys were going to complain about, but now came the problem of who was going to be the one on the receiving end of her attention. Of course, she went straight to Tanaka and knelt in front of him. By all means, the guy should have been used to it by now, but he instinctively put a hand up to where his scarf should have been and found nothing there to cover his embarrassment. The presence of the third person in the room exacerbated this reaction tenfold.

Sonia’s fingers undid the zipper of his pants, which Souda averted his eyes from, before she realized that it would be rude to leave out their extra person again – it was harder than she thought to keep all three engaged. She turned her head back towards him.

“Souda-san, would you like to do something for me?”

 _Anything but handle Tanaka_ , he prayed, but the words came out of his mouth saying otherwise. “A-Anything! Anything at all!”

“Excellent!” she said. “Please lie on your back!”

He stuttered, fidgeting with his own zipper. “L-Lie on… okay! Okay! Got it!”

Souda swung his legs out in front of himself and lowered his body, rolling onto the soft surface of her rug. With his back to the floor and his head angled up at the ceiling, Sonia walked up to his horizontal figure and placed a leg on each side of him, standing over his midsection. She bent down so her face was directly aligned with his and took ahold of the zipper of his jumpsuit, playing with it between her thumb and forefinger as she peered down at him. Her golden hair fell around both sides of him.

“You must be getting tired of this, too, yes?”

He stared up at her wide-eyed. “…Maybe. Kinda. Are you takin’ it off?” He could have punched himself for how dumb he sounded. The slight buzz wasn’t doing him any favors as far as eloquent word choice went.

“I’m getting there,” she said, a smile cracking on her face in response to his oafish comment. She delicately tugged the silver piece down his chest, first revealing his white shirt underneath and then the brightly-colored boxers he so prided himself on at his waist. She found his choice in attire curious, but didn’t put much else thought into it.

Souda groaned as he felt her hand cup the bulge in his shorts once more, curling his fingers at his sides. Sonia began stroking through his clothing as she had done before, reveling in the boy’s intense reaction to her touch. The mechanic arched his back up, biting his lip as he attempted to stifle his response. He could already feel himself close to finishing. Though he had barely been stimulated at all, the very act of pleasing Sonia and just being in her presence in such a situation had done most of the job for him. All he needed was to hold out a little bit longer for her, but it was becoming an increasingly difficult endeavor.

Sonia did not continue for very long before she reversed her direction and oriented herself toward Tanaka, still standing over Souda’s midsection. Tanaka had been keeping himself busy with his own erection as she bent over the other boy, though Souda could not see the guy past Sonia’s figure and frankly wasn’t paying much attention to him at all.

Tanaka moved forward and brushed his body against hers, curving an inelegant arm around her back and tilting his head to exchange a brief kiss before Sonia knelt down once more, straddling her legs around Souda’s upper body. While pulling down the breeder’s black pants further to expose him, she backed herself onto the other boy’s face and grinded down on his nose and lips. Souda jerked reflexively. While this wasn’t the position he was expecting to get into when she asked him to get on his back, he couldn’t have asked for anything better, his vision completely enveloped by her backside as he laid at her mercy. Souda wrapped his arms up around the base of her legs for leverage and dove his face back into her, taking Tanaka’s demonstration to heart. Above him, Sonia could be heard letting out a sharp gasp.

At the same time, Sonia finally eased Tanaka’s cock out of his pants, giving him a good lick and slipping him into her mouth while the other’s view was obscured. His body jolted as he let an involuntary moan escape his lips, the sound coming off as practically foreign from someone as dignified as he led others to believe he was. He placed one hand on her shoulder and ran the long fingers of his other hand through her hair, panting steadily as she went down on him.

The motions transferred to Souda, with his tongue still at the princess’s slit, providing immense pleasure for both the giver and the receiver. He was trying with all of his might to suppress his skyrocketing arousal, but it was becoming too difficult to go on. The curve of her legs, the heat of her body, the scent and softness of her skin was all overwhelming to his senses. He struggled against her, his licking slowing down as she continued to rub against him. If it continued like this, he was going to cum hands-free.

He huffed. “S-Sonia-san…!”

Both of them heard his pitiful whine from below and paused to look at each other, unsure of how to proceed. Someone was going to have to take one for the team. Sonia, who was sure it had to be her, removed her lips from Tanaka’s groin and began to bend down to Souda’s waist only to be stopped by a hand to her mouth.

“…?” She didn’t know what he was doing at first, but Tanaka gave her a reassuring look that could only mean one thing. She nodded.

He silently dropped to his knees and bent down towards Souda’s boxers, carefully pulling them back to reveal his twitching erection. He hesitated for a moment to strategize his approach, considering only what would be the most efficient method to quickly dispatch him. The other boy’s breathing grew heavier by the second and increased in frequency with every touch, each graze of the other’s fingers sending pleasure shooting through his entire body.

It was then, to the surprise of even Sonia, that Tanaka lowered his head all the way to Souda’s cock and placed his tongue upon it, beginning at the base and trailing upwards to his tip. He paused at the top, teasing the sensitive underside with his tongue, causing Souda to groan and his legs to contract – he wasn’t going to last much longer. It was happening so fast. With little effort, the breeder took his entire length into his mouth and closed his lips around it.

It was right about that moment that Souda realized that had Sonia been the one on the giving end, the angle of the tongue was completely wrong.

“…T-Tanak… _hahh!!_ ”

By the time he had reacted, it was already far too late – Souda had been teetering on the edge and Tanaka’s final action was enough to push him over. His body trembled and convulsed, his fingers clawing into Sonia’s thighs so hard it nearly left red marks. Tanaka put a stiff hand to Souda’s midsection to keep a steady hold on him as he bucked, trying not to gag with his lips around his shaft.

In the midst of their distraction, they were even less prepared for what came next.

A loud _*THUD*_ banged right outside of the window of the cottage, followed by what sounded like a splash of water and scuffling on the other side of the wall. Sonia instantly froze and jerked her head towards the source of the clatter. The noise continued for a few seconds, coming from the direction of one of the side windows, sounding like something scratching wildly at the wooden planks outside. Tanaka heard it too, though Souda was too preoccupied to care, still wrapped up in the afterglow of what he would never be able to admit to anyone was just the most intense orgasm of his life.

“…An animal?” Tanaka asked, lifting his head up at Sonia.

Her face was drained of color. She could only manage to get out a few words. “It… it couldn’t be!”

Sonia jumped off of Souda and scrambled towards the window over her bed to see what the disturbance was, and seized up upon noticing something they had completely overlooked before starting. Under normal circumstances, no one should have been able to see into her side window, especially since no one besides Souda had any business sneaking around to her back door. But _had_ someone been lurking just outside, a tiny gap in her shades allowed just enough room for a potential intruder to see within. She brushed them aside to uncover the identity of whatever she feared was on the other side, but could make out nothing in the dim light.

Tanaka wiped a sleeve across his lips and got back up to his feet, leaving the dazed mechanic lying on the floor. “Sonia, please calm yourself! It was likely the wind, or—”

“You heard it too, did you not? That was no natural sound, Tanaka-san!” she said, rushing over to her undergarments and stockings lying on the floor to slip them back on. Tanaka, who only had to zip up his pants to be fully clothed once more, decided to take the initiative and go on ahead of her, risking exposing his presence in her cottage to anyone who might be outside but willing to take the chance. With a swift open and close of the door, he slinked into the darkness to see if he could find the source of the commotion, bending over somewhat in his still-present state of vulnerability.

Around the corner of the cabin, he scanned the scene to discover something unnatural that caught his eye – the broken edge of one of the wooden boards that led to the back porch, one directly under her window, which he was certain hadn’t been there before. It was then at his feet where he noticed the most damning piece of evidence. Starting at the edge of the wooden path that connected each of their cottages, a set of wet footprints could be seen emerging from the water and running in the direction of the hotel gate, gradually disappearing onto the dirt road. Sonia appeared behind him and followed his gaze to the trail leading away from them, putting a hand to her mouth upon witnessing it. The presence of such an obvious clue could only mean one thing.

They had been seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[bonus](http://40.media.tumblr.com/49a76c8a26c28700df320b2e7d677874/tumblr_nlvbyqcgPc1u0pyw2o1_500.png)]


	4. The Deal

To say that had ruined the mood was a bit of an understatement.

The events that unfolded within Sonia’s cottage shortly after could only be described as mass chaos. It took a lot to break Sonia’s patient shell, but that was about enough to do it – she had become so distraught upon the discovery that both her and the boys had been worked into a frenzy, with Tanaka swearing unholy revenge for the “night demon” that had invaded their space and Souda threatening to tear both Tanaka and the intruder a new one once he had come back to his senses. After they had caused almost enough of a ruckus to alert everyone in a hundred-mile radius, Sonia booted both boys out of her room before anyone else could hear them, though Tanaka held his ground for a short while longer in a failed attempt to talk her down from her excited state.

It was clear that they were in no condition to make any rational decisions about their predicament, so all three of them ended up going their separate ways terribly agitated and utterly unsatisfied. A resolution, if any, would have to come in the morning.

And as their wake-up call hit at the crack of dawn, they could not have dreaded that meeting any more.

The trio of deviants each arrived at the dining room all at different times that next morning, doing what some might describe as the “walk of shame” up the staircase into the gathering of their classmates, hyper-aware of every pair of judgmental eyes that fell upon them as they entered the room. Of course, to their horror, every single one of their fellow students was present, and if the clues added up the way they thought they did, _someone_ in the room had seen them in their lewd encounter. This made for an awkward breakfast, to put it lightly.

Each of them had their reasons to be completely mortified at their predicament: Sonia, because her SHSL title didn’t allow for such crude activities; Souda, because he’d been seen engaging with another man in the bedroom; and Tanaka, whose status as the Ascendant Ruler of Ice meant he should not be bound by matters of the flesh (and maybe also Souda’s reason, as well). And lord knows how fast a rumor can spread through high school students.

Souda approached the smattering of breakfast options laid out on table in front of him, petrified at every stray glance he received from his classmates, no matter how innocent, and piled a few small pieces of fruit on his plate amidst the rest of the terrible offerings of Monokuma’s mystery cooking. He didn’t feel hungry at all after how the last night’s events had gone down, but would need some fuel in him to keep him going since he was going to have to face his two co-conspirators eventually. The thought put a knot in his stomach.

He turned around to find Tanaka sitting at the furthest table away from everyone else, even further than he usually sat, with his scarf pulled up to his cheeks and sporting a thousand-yard stare upon his hardened face. He was gazing through the far wall until Souda’s bright colors caught his eye like an aposematic warning signal. Truly, the mechanic was colored like a poison dart frog. The two of them made brief eye contact, narrowing their eyes at one another, before Tanaka pulled his muffler down and tilted his head back in a sort of _come here_ gesture. It was way too early in the morning to be thinking about it, but Souda knew he couldn’t avoid the guy forever – it would be better to just get it over with. With a sigh, he trudged over to Tanaka’s table.

Hinata, his usual morning companion, noticed Souda brush past him and keep moving without saying a word. He swung his head towards him as he walked by. “…Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“Me?” Souda halted, pointing a finger at himself. “Uhh… I’m uhh… gonna go sit by Tanaka today, I think.”

“ _You’re_ gonna go sit by Tanaka?” he asked, trying to stifle a smile. “Okay, now I know you’re sick. Should we have Tsumiki check you out?”

“N-No! It’s just… well, _actually_ , for your information _,_ I just so happened to decide that we’re _friends_ now. As of last night,” he stated. “…I-I mean, before then! Er, uh… just now, even! Because nothing weird happened last night. Heh heh!” He offered him a crooked grin.

Hinata raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

“Y-Yeah, so that’s it. I’m gonna…” he stammered, pointing a shaky finger behind him. “…Okay. Yeah. I’m gonna go now.” He hurried away from Hinata before he could ask him any more questions, making a beeline towards the table on the far end of the room.

Tanaka’s gaze followed him as he approached, watching Souda's expression grow less cheery with every step he took. Upon arriving, he dropped his plate on the table and yanked his chair back, stalling to glare at the breeder with a vicious scowl upon his face. He slowly inhaled through his nose, not breaking eye contact for a moment as he stood over him.

Tanaka pulled down his scarf with a finger, lowering his voice to a deep growl. “…Don’t you _dare_ bring that up here, or I swear in heaven’s name I will personally put you out of your misery.”

“Not if I do it to you first,” he hissed, lowering himself into his chair.

The two refused to speak to each other for a few good minutes while they cooled off, sitting wordlessly across from one another as they forced down a few pieces of food. After a while, Souda, curious about the status of their third party, checked over his shoulder to see where Sonia was. On the other side of the room, the princess could be seen pouring herself a cup of hot water for her tea. One could almost see the dark storm cloud brewing over her head. Unlike the previous few days, where she had expertly masked her intentions with a smiling face, her current disposition made it very clear she wasn’t in a good mood.

Souda rotated his body back towards the breeder and sucked in air through his teeth. “…So how mad is Sonia-san?”

Tanaka’s eyes turned to her for a moment and back at Souda. “Let’s just say… her wrath could send even the most ferocious of beasts running with their tail between their legs.”

He gulped. If she was gonna take out her anger on anyone, it was gonna be him, not Tanaka. He looked down at his plate. “Great. Well, this blows.”

“To put it bluntly, one might say.”

“Yeah…” he mumbled. He paused, curling his lip up in distaste. “…Know what _else_ blows? Or maybe, _who else?_ ”

“Wha-!” he jerked forward. “What did I just say?!”

“It sure ain’t my fault!” he whispered. “I can’t fuckin’ believe you did that. I’m still pissed about it. I’m gonna be pissed about it until I’m 80 years old.”

“Enough. Finish your breakfast. I am not discussing this here.” He angled his head down to rub his forehead, his face noticeably tinged red.

“You couldn’t’ve just let her do it? She was right there!”

He looked back up at Souda and leaned in further, taking in a deep breath as he growled at him through gritted teeth. “I was trying to be a gentleman, you fiend. To _her,_ not to you. I was doing her a favor,” he explained. “This body of mine is already is already filled with poison. It’s not like a bit more was going to make a difference.”

Souda reacted as though he had just been punched in the face. “Psh! Some _favor_ that was! What about me?!”

“I would be willing to argue that you thought differently during the immediate occurrence,” he smirked. “Even such, it’s not as though I was about to be defeated by that short sword of yours.”

It took him a second to realize he was being insulted. “You –!”

Tanaka pursed his lips and cut him off with a gesture at his own throat, looking behind the mechanic with widened eyes as someone approached their table. Souda twisted around to see who it was and immediately whipped back upon seeing the person in question, nearly choking on his spit. He hunched over his plate.

Sonia stopped in between the two boys and cleared her throat, looking down her nose at both of them with a small plate of food in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. It was the first time she’d approached them since the incident the night before, and in fact, one of the first times she’d approached Souda at all by her own free will.

Souda’s eyes darted to her and back. “Hey-y-y…” he muttered weakly. “I thought you didn’t want to be seen near me?”

She returned him an icy glare. “It’s a bit too late for that, isn’t it?” she said, her words dripping with poison. Souda took this as his cue to keep his mouth shut.

Sonia stepped towards the empty chair next to Tanaka and stalled there, letting her shoulders droop, and set her breakfast on the table. With a sigh, she suddenly placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch.

“…I am sorry. I am not mad at you, Tanaka-san. Or you, either, I suppose,” she said, nodding towards Souda. He breathed a sigh of relief. “It is merely… our circumstances, you see. We are in a bit of an unsavory situation.” She lowered herself into her chair, resting her chin in her palm as she sat with the finger of her other hand looped through her teacup.

“Did you find anything out?” Souda whispered. “I mean, I was kinda distracted last night at the time, if y’know what I mean, so I might have missed some of the exact details.”

“No, nothing yet. I lied awake in bed for a quite a while, unable to sleep because of my worry that they would return, but nothing ever came of it.”

“So that’s seriously what happened? Some creep was tryin’ to sneak a peek into your cottage while we were at it?”

She nodded weakly. “I do not wish to believe one of our classmates would do such a thing, but…”

“It would seem so,” Tanaka leaned back. “Concerning our findings last night, it can be assumed that a perpetrator was attempting to look into the side window when, either due to their own incompetency or simply a weak wooden panel, they lost their balance and fell into the water below. That would at least explain the scratching, as they were struggling to get back up.”

“And it was definitely someone _here_ , right? Like a _person_ , not an animal, or Monokuma or something?” Souda asked.

“The footprints were unmistakably human. There is no one else on this island except for us, unless it was an elaborate ruse orchestrated by Monokuma,” Tanaka said. “Regrettably, I was unable to detect their presence in time… It seems that being in such close contact with another human being may have weakened my powers.” Souda rolled his eyes at his remark.

Sonia’s gaze was directed aimlessly out the window, watching the palm trees flitter on the other side of the glass. “If it had not been for my oversight,” she began, “I had meticulously planned every detail, but to leave in such a critical mistake… Perhaps I have overestimated my leadership ability. I am sorry to have dragged you into this.”

“Do not apologize, it’s the fiend among us we need to worry about. They are the ones who were prowling where they didn’t belong, a person with diabolical intentions, undoubtedly, engaging in a deliberate, heinous act of treachery! Someone whose mind has been tainted with darkness!”

She let a sigh pass her lips again. “I cannot believe it. I _trusted_ them. To think one of them would do that…”

“Perhaps our trust has been misplaced, then. Someone in this room is harboring a dark secret beyond a veil of innocence. We were followed, make no mistake.” He turned his attention towards their classmates milling about on the other side of the room. As far as the others went, it looked like business as usual – nothing was out of the ordinary that they could tell. Tanaka continued. “However, the question remains – who, and _why?”_

“You think it’s some kinda pervert, maybe? Why else would they follow us?” Souda asked.

“That is plausible,” Sonia said. “In fact, Souda-san, if you had not been present, you would have been very high on the list of suspects.”

He chuckled nervously. “Heh heh… that’s a bit much even for me, don’t you think?”

She didn’t answer.

“Seriously?! Is that the kinda guy you think I am?!”

“…Regardless, I am interested in finding out who our culprit is,” Tanaka interrupted. “For if I uncover their identity, they’ll be wishing they were kneeling at the throne of Lucifer rather than standing face-to-face with me!”

“For sure, I am interested as well,” she said. “But what do we do now? It’s too late to reverse the fact that we were seen. I mean, if word gets around…”

They looked at each other uneasily. If word got around about Souda and Tanaka’s little encounter, all it meant was a blow to their dignity. However, for Sonia, if the rumor of her risqué activities made it all the way up to anyone in a position of power, it could potentially mean _expulsion_. Hope’s Peak Academy had specifically chosen her to represent them as the Super High School Level Princess, and to find out she was blatantly turning her back on some of the very skills they were trying to cultivate out of her would likely not be met with a very kind response. Princesses were supposed dignified, charismatic, good at guarding their family secrets, and among the other things, pure, chaste, _virginal_. The school was known for using a few underhanded tactics to preserve its image as the top academy in the world, and for what little they knew, it would be safe to assume that what happened on Jabberwock Island probably didn't stay on Jabberwock Island.

“Well, we’re not gonna let anything bad happen, okay?” Souda said. He hated to see the girl this distraught.

“Thank you,” she muttered. “But we don’t even know who it was. How are we supposed to keep them quiet?”

Truth be told, they had no idea where to begin. The three of them turned their eyes to the other students, scanning the crowd for a potential suspect. Besides Nidai, who was nursing a powerful hangover, everyone that morning was acting their usual selves. In fact, no one was paying them any attention at all. One would think that if one of their classmates in the room had seen them engaged in a threesome, they’d at least get the occasional weird look or two out of them. Nothing.

The three of them sat in silence as they deliberated their options, forcing a few more pieces of food into their mouths. It seemed, for the time being, they were at a loss. The clock ticked by slowly as they watched the others eat, slumping down in their chairs as their outlook looked more grim with each passing second.

Tanaka broke their silence. “I suppose, there is one thing…" The other two turned their heads towards him.

Souda blinked. “And that is?”

“That is…” he sat up, “we could potentially draw upon a bit of black magic to assist us.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, c’mon, not this garbage! At least give us a real answer!”

“No, I wish to hear this!” Sonia interrupted, putting a hand out to shush the other boy. Souda groaned and sat back with his arms crossed.

“I mean it. Hear me out,” Tanaka said. “Black magic is a type of selfish magic, performed for the benefit of its user at the expense of others, often one that draws upon a malevolent power for one’s own gain. Let me ask you this – do you remember anything that happened leading up to your arrival on this island?”

They shook their heads. “No, because our memories were taken or something, weren’t they?” said Souda.

“Do you recall who took those memories?”

Sonia put a hand to her chin. “It was… it was Monomi, wasn’t it? That is what we were told.”

“Correct,” he stated. “However, Monomi, even as wretched a being as she is, is a much too pure-hearted individual to support this type of selfish cause. Do you know of a more _malevolent_ magical, stuffed creature that occupies this island?”

“Monokuma, obviously,” Souda said. “He’s the only other one. What are you getting at?”

“What I am getting at, Souda, is that those two beings both likely possess the ability to tamper with memories. And someone in this very room has _a memory of seeing us in the act_. Do you follow?”

They both stared at him dumbfounded for a few moments, trying to wrap their minds around the wild idea he had just presented. Souda straightened himself out. “Are you implying…” he began, “we’re gonna find this person, and _erase their memory?_ Ohhh no way, that’s the craziest thing I ever–“

“It’s brilliant!” Sonia interjected. “Tanaka-san, you are a genius! Of course, why did I not consider it before? It is a surefire solution!”

“Are you kidding me? We’ve gotta bring this up to Monokuma?!” Souda said. “No way! He’d never let us hear the end of it! The guy’s evil, how do we know he wouldn’t mess with us?”

“Monokuma is evil, yes, but he is at least a lawful type of evil,” Tanaka explained. “Monokuma is predictable. He can be reasoned with, if you have the patience for his bumbling logic. And chances are high that he already knows what transpired due to his security cameras.”

“The security cameras!! Why did you have to remind me?!” Souda groaned, laying his head on the table. “Great, how am I gonna live with myself knowing Monokuma’s seen us too?”

“No, this is good news!” Sonia said. “If Monokuma has security cameras all over the island, he should know who followed us!”

“That’s great and all, but how are we supposed to draw him out away from everyone else to talk to him? It’s a workday. We’re supposed to get to our stations right after breakfast,” Souda said. The Monokuma he knew was always a stickler for following a rigid schedule, and getting him to break his routine was going to be a tall order.

“I’ve seen Komaeda do it,” said Sonia. “All you have to do is ask for him and he will appear! It seems quite simple, doesn’t it? I am sure he can spare a few minutes.”

Souda pulled up one corner of his lip, but Tanaka reassured him. “The worst he can do is say no. We may as well ask.”

“I’m sure there’s a few worse things Monokuma can do than say ‘no’, just sayin’,” Souda mumbled.

He ignored his concern and continued. “If we wait until everyone leaves the dining hall to return to their stations, it should give us a short window of time where he is available to talk. That is our best option, should we wish to take action quickly.”

“Then we shall wait!” Sonia exclaimed. “Let us begin!”

 

* * *

 

 

One at a time, the students began clearing out of the breakfast area to return to their assigned gathering locations around the islands. Souda, Sonia, and Tanaka had each gotten up and moved around a bit to pass the time, and kept a close eye on the others as they passed between tables, listening for any clue that would tip them off in case anyone dropped any hints of their suspicious whereabouts the night before. Soon, only a few stragglers remained. Finally, once Owari was able to be dragged away from the food table, the three of them were the last students remaining. They listened for the door to close downstairs in the lobby, and upon hearing it latch shut, the rare quiet meant they were now safe.

They gathered in a circle in the center of the room, where Tanaka crossed his arms and looked up at the clock. “Ten minutes. We shouldn’t dawdle.”

“So how do we do this, now?” Souda asked. “Do we just have to call him?”

“Monokuma! Please come here!” Sonia cried, lifting her hands up to her mouth to amplify her voice. The sound echoed throughout the empty room, bouncing around their surroundings for a few moments before finally fading into nothing.

A few seconds passed while they waited for him to materialize. They swiveled their heads around for any sign of the bear. Usually, Monokuma’s appearance was instantaneous, so his uncharacteristic delay was met with slight concern. Souda raised a brow, turning his head towards Sonia. “Are you sure that’s how–”

“Upupupu! Hello, hello!”

The three of them spun their bodies towards the irritating nasally voice that had appeared behind them. Monokuma was standing a few feet away with his tiny bear arms clasped behind his back, looking up at the three of them with beady eyes.

Souda staggered backwards. “…He’s here!”

Monokuma casually sauntered towards them. “It’s not cool to arrive on time, you know. That’s why I’m fashionably late. I need to make sure I’m on top of the trends at all time. I’m racking up fashion points left and right!”

“That’s nothin’ you’ve ever told us…” Souda's brow flattened.

“Oh, is that right?” Monokuma said. “Well, rules are different for bears, you know. It’s only fashionable to be late if you’re me. Bears need all the fashion points they can get!”

“…Nevermind that,” Sonia interrupted. “Monokuma-san, we have a favor to ask of you.”

They saw him stiffen. Monokuma straightened his posture, turning his back towards the three, and lowered his voice. “…So that’s what this is about, is it?”

Sonia leaned to one side, trying to see his face. “Please, we need your help. It’s concerning–“

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me.” He looked over his shoulder. “I know _all_ about your little extracurricular activities.”

They had a feeling this was going to come up. They tensed up, steeling themselves for his inevitable response, and could already tell he was less than pleased by the tone of his voice.

Monokuma whipped back around, sporting a harsh expression upon his face. “ _Nothing_ happens on this island without me knowing about it. And yes, I saw the entire affair. Every last bit, at every single angle, in excruciatingly vivid detail. And let me tell you, you’re all _sick_.” He waggled a round finger at the three of them.

Tanaka’s jaw clenched. “Yes, that cannot be argued.”

“I give you nice, innocent students all the amenities your hearts could desire, and this is how you choose to spend your time? Engaging in gratuitous sexual congress? _Especially_ you two!” he said, moving his accusatory finger towards Sonia and Tanaka, who turned beet red. “The things I’ve seen on those security cameras could give a priest a stroke!”

Souda bottled up a scream.

“T-That’s–“

“And in _my_ nice cottages, of all places?” Monokuma continued. “Do you know who does your housekeeping here at this hotel? Yes, it’s me! I fold all your towels, turn down your bedding, put a nice mint on your pillow, and this is how you repay me? By sullying up every surface imaginable on a nightly basis? Disgusting!”

“M-Moving on…” Sonia stammered, pulling at her collar. “Monokuma-san, we really need to ask you a favor. As our headmaster, it is your duty to aid us, is it not?”

He tilted his head back and forth. “Hmm. Maybe. You’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here asking me for a favor after everything that happened yesterday,” he said, furrowing his brow. “You come into my house, you _steal_ my booze, on this day, the day of my daughter’s wedding…”

“Hey! That wasn’t even us!” Souda countered.

Monokuma sighed. “I suppose. But you _did_ take part in it, therefore, making you enablers.”

“Monokuma-san, you said you have security cameras all over the island, is that correct?” Sonia asked, attempting to steer the subject back on track. “In that case, you must have seen something else occur, did you not? Concerning the noise we heard last night. Was it really… one of _them_?”

A sly smile appeared on his face. “Oh yes, that little happening. Yes, I can confirm it was one of your classmates who was doing the peeping.” That was what they had feared all along, but to hear it confirmed made them wince. “…My, you should have seen the look on their face when they got their head in that window! Priceless!”

“Who was it?!” Souda barked.

“That’s all I’m going to reveal,” he said. “It just wouldn’t be very interesting if I told you right here. I think you bastards owe me one.”

Souda looked as though he was going to lunge at the bear before Sonia put an arm across his chest. She cleared her throat. “…Even if you do not reveal their identity, Tanaka-san tells us you have the ability to tamper with memories. Is that true?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Well, probably definitely yes. I am a magical stuffed bear, after all. What’s your point?”

“That is…” she began, “we were wondering if you could erase the specific memory of that person seeing us in the bedroom last night.”

Monokuma’s ears perked up. “Oh my, that’s a new one. Erase the memory itself, hmm…?” He tapped a paw to his chin, appearing to be mulling it over as he turned his back to them once more. The three stood wordlessly as they waited for his answer, listening to the seconds tick by on the clock.

“…Is it possible?” Tanaka asked.

“It is,” Monokuma said. “And color me intrigued. However, if I do consider this proposal, I would like some potential payoff on my end. My favors don’t run cheap.” He faced himself towards them, his red eye appearing to glint as it caught the sunlight spilling in through the window. “…Would you care to make a deal?”

“What… sort of deal?” Sonia asked. The three of them shifted uneasily.

Monokuma straightened his back out. “How about this. If you can uncover the identity of the intruder on your _own_ within a 24-hour time frame, and bring them to me, I’ll erase their memory, no questions asked.”

Sonia’s eyes brightened. “T-That would be perfect! We–“

“But,” he interjected, “should you fail to bring said person to me within that period, or if you bring me the wrong individual, the punishment will be steep. And as my offer only extends to one person, if anyone else finds out about your little activities, the deal becomes void. If you waste my time, you will be paying me with a hefty dose of your own despair.”

“…Punishment?” Souda asked, beginning to break out into a cold sweat.

“Punishment, you heard me right. And I’m going to put the confidentiality of your secret on the line. If you fail these conditions…” He flashed them a malicious grin. “…I’m going to tell _everyone._ ”

They froze at his offer. This wasn't quite the deal they were hoping for. On both sides of Sonia, the two boys stood with their jaws hanging slack, appalled at the proposition, but Sonia appeared to be pondering the idea. She held a shaky hand up to her face. “I… I think we could manage –“

“–Ah, ah, hey now! Hold on here a sec!” Souda forced himself into her sentence, stepping in front of her. “Can we like, negotiate this a bit?”

“No negotiations. The offer is final. Take it or leave it,” said Monokuma.

He gritted his teeth and stepped back, and both boys turned their attention to Sonia, who appeared to still be on the verge of accepting his offer. While there was that tiny glimmer of hope for success, there was a very high probability that it could blow right up in their faces. Due to that _one_ tiny bit near the end involving Tanaka’s actions towards Souda, their pride was at stake, and neither of them were willing to risk having Monokuma spill out the details of what had transpired in the bedroom to a lineup of their horrified classmates.

Souda’s eyes darted between her and Monokuma, pausing upon Tanaka to see if he was going to say anything, before nervously speaking up. “H-Hey, could you, uh, give us a sec maybe?” he said, putting a firm hand on Sonia’s shoulder to swivel her around, with Tanaka following suit. The three of them leaned in and bunched their heads together, forming a sort of huddle facing away from the bear to deliberate their options. Monokuma cocked his head to the side, observing them with curiosity from behind.

Sonia's eyes blazed with determination in the middle of the two boys. She clenched her fists. “...He is really offering to do this for us! I think we should accept!”

“Sonia-san, this is the worst deal I’ve ever heard! You can’t seriously be thinking about it, right? Please tell me you’re not!” Souda said, keeping his voice to a whisper.

“Please be reasonable, my lady! It would be unwise to rush into this decision with such haste!” Tanaka added. He was also clearly dreading the negative outcome, but putting on too much of a front to admit it outright.

“It is the only way! Do you have an alternate suggestion?” she said. “If we accept, there is a chance the memory is erased forever, and we will never have to worry about it again!”

“But if we fail,” Tanaka said, “The consequences will be… _dire_ , to say the least. The destruction it could wreak upon us would be cataclysmic!”

“If we mess this up, we’re gonna make things a thousand times worse! I’ll never be able to show my face in public again!” Souda whined. “It’ll be social suicide!”

Sonia's forehead wrinkled. “Yes, we may fail, but we cannot succeed if we do not try! As they say, ‘You cannot grip the trousersnake if you do not enter its den!’”

“I-I… don’t believe that is a phrase that anyone has ever uttered…” Tanaka made a face, before Souda slapped a hand to his shoulder in a gesture for him to shut up.

“Sonia, please –!“ Both Souda and Tanaka tried to find a counter to her argument, but Sonia spun around to face Monokuma before they could get a word in edgewise. They scrambled to stop her, but it was too late.

She clapped her hands in front of her. “We’ll do it!”

With that statement, a feeling of terrible dread washed over the two of them, standing beside her with pained expressions as they knew there was no going back now. Monokuma’s sharktoothed smile grew wider, only adding to their sense of unease.

“Upupupu…!” he exclaimed. “Good! Very good! This is exciting!”

Souda ran a hand through his hair, clutching at his beanie. “Twenty-four hours…? Starting now?”

Monokuma chuckled. “I’ll tell you what, since I’m a benevolent, loveable bear, I’ll start the countdown at noon today so you have until noon tomorrow to conduct your investigation. You can bring the culprit sooner, if you choose, but I will be waiting at the beach tomorrow at 12:00pm sharp for your arrival.”

“And if… we don’t…”

“If you don’t, or if you’re even a second late, the conditions will be considered failed and the punishment shall commence,” he said. “It’ll be a ‘ _sexecution’_ , if you will, for our little ‘ _ass trial’._ ”

His comment drew a grimace from both of the boys, but Sonia was dead-set in her ways, determined to succeed at any cost, the fire in her eyes burning more brightly than ever. As far as she was concerned, there was no such thing as failure, and there was no way she was going to let Monokuma win. She was ready to give it her all.

Her commandeering voice rang out sharply throughout the dining room. “We won’t lose, Monokuma-san! You will see!”

“Upupu, we’ll see about that,” he laughed. “And might I remind you… in any gambling situation, the odds _always_ favor the dealer! Now get back to work!”

With his last words, he disappeared before their eyes, leaving the three of them alone in the empty dining room to discuss their plan of attack. Souda stood hunched over, looking as though he was about to be sick at the notion of what they had just agreed to, while Tanaka had his arms crossed in front of him indignantly, his lips tightened into a thin line. Sonia read their expressions and put a comforting hand on both of them.

“We can do this! All we have to do is uncover our single perpetrator, and we have all day to do so!” she reassured them, but the boys were not so easily swayed.

“What are we supposed to do? _Ask_ everyone?” Souda said. “Because, y’know, if the point is to keep this a secret, and we go around grilling everyone like, ‘hey, did you see anything weird going on last night? Maybe between me, Sonia, and Tanaka?’, they’re gonna figure it out.”

“No, you fool. We wouldn’t ask them directly,” Tanaka growled. “We’ll just have to make conversation with the lot of them and see if anything comes up. One of those devils is bound to commit a slip of the tongue.”

“Exactly!” Sonia exclaimed. “As the Super High School Level Princess, no one on this island is better at keeping a secret than I! There’s no way we can’t get it the truth out of that criminal!”

The good news was that each of them had been assigned to different locations that day to work, so between all three of them, they would likely get a chance to talk to everyone on the island if they each made sure to hit up a handful of their classmates. Their next opportunity to meet would be at dinner, where hopefully by then a culprit would be revealed. As long as they were careful not to spill any other details, it could theoretically go without incident. However, the boys could not get rid of that lingering sense of dread.

“And if we don’t figure it out by tonight…?” Souda rubbed his sweaty palms.

“Well, we’ll figure that out if we get there! But we won’t worry about that, will we?” Sonia stated, and put a hand on her bicep in a display of unyielding confidence. “…How hard could it be?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sonia...
> 
> [[bonus round 2](https://40.media.tumblr.com/a9ead3ee54065fb0257b9a4db8916d2c/tumblr_nmhbr3dbBo1u0pyw2o1_1280.png)]


	5. The Investigation, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, but I'm back with not one, but TWO chapters, and both at the same time! They started as one but I thought it'd be better to break them up. So without further ado, let the investigation begin.

“‘How hard can it be’… psh! She’s right! It can’t be that hard!”

Souda eyed his first target: Teruteru Hanamura, the island’s resident sex fiend, who was his first and hopefully last stop on his quest to filter out their culprit. If anyone had the gall to stick their nose in their private affair, it was that sleazeball, and getting a confession out of him would be quick and painless. Souda had left the hotel a nervous wreck, but quickly pepped himself up – if he managed to present his findings to Sonia, he’d be her hero, her knight in shining armor – and he was willing to bet anything the chef was at fault. All he needed to do now was strike up a conversation with the guy. It wasn’t too hard for Souda to talk to him on a normal day, but if he really wanted to get him going, it meant he would have to turn off his filter - not that he had much of one to begin with.

Assigned at the beach with a number of the other students, Hanamura could be seen by the waterfront sifting for materials in the sand, with his shirt already taken off in the midmorning heat and his back glistening a little _too_ unnaturally in the sun’s light. He turned his head as Souda approached.

“Good morning, Souda, are you stationed here today too?” he greeted, his voice as saccharine as ever.

Souda was in no mood to mess around and quickly steered the subject in his direction. “Hey, ‘morning! Sorry I had to leave so early last night, what’d I miss?” he asked, just as he had rehearsed the line in his head.

“Hmm… nothing interesting, in my opinion. Everyone stayed until just before the Monokuma announcement, but we were about ready for bed by that point,” he said, and absentmindedly piled some sand to the side. “I was hoping for a little more… you know, _action_ , last night, if I may. But as long as you all enjoyed the food, that’s fine by me.”

“…Action?” he questioned. If he was going to get anywhere, he was going to have to dig deeper.

“You know… with the drinks and all being passed around last night,” he said. “You’d think after all that, _especially_ considering how tuned up a few of them were, everyone would have been a bit more receptive to these kind of things. But no! No one wants to go back to Hanamura’s cottage! Do they know who I am? Why, anyone would find it an honor to be treated to a night in with the world’s finest chef!” In actuality, he had probably sent every girl on the island screaming for the hills.

“Yeah, I bet…” He stuck his tongue out while the chef was looking the other way. As expected, Hanamura had immediately brought the topic to sex, but he wasn’t making his guilt as obvious as he thought he would. Souda was _positive_ it had to be him. If Hanamura had seen them in the act, the guy should have already been asking when he’d be invited to round two. The guy wasn’t exactly known to treat such topics with delicacy. “…No luck, then, I take it?”

“No luck. Not one bite. Trust me, I tried, and when it failed with the girls, I tried a few on the other side.”

He was getting nowhere. There had to be _something_ that would set him off, and a few more ideas tossed around in his head. He gave Hanamura a playful elbow. “Heh heh… you don’t think someone’s out there _stealing all our girls_ , ya think?”

He got a grin out of Hanamura. “Ufufu… I doubt it. At this rate, I’m convinced every female on this island is an honest-to-goodness virgin. You know… they say once you start, you can’t stop. It’s an addicting sensation.”

“Ah… y-you think so? Right, right! I knew that!” He chuckled, but a sinking feeling grew in his stomach. That was the dagger, the testimony which all but confirmed that Hanamura couldn’t possibly have been present at their cottage last night. If he’d committed the act, and if it wasn’t the first time he’d done so, he should have been painfully aware that Sonia and Tanaka weren’t virgins.

Hanamura put a friendly hand on Souda’s back, a little _too_ friendly, and he was just short enough for his reach to be uncomfortably low. Souda’s skin crawled. Just when he thought it was safe, the chef was moving in for the kill. “Say… why don’t you take this pesky thing off? It’s awfully hot out here, you know.”

“Ahh… I-I’m gonna pass! I’m actually kinda chilly right now, so I think I’m gonna keep it on!” he said, as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.

“...Such a shame. But, if you need help applying sunscreen later, you know who to ask. I’ll make sure to get to _all_ those places you can’t reach.”

Souda quietly ducked out of his grasp and practically sprinted to the other edge of the beach, knowing better than to let his guard down around Hanamura. But now, the difficult part came: asking everyone _else._ Since he was so positive it had to be Hanamura, he hadn’t planned ahead for the others. Luckily, the rest of his assignments were also incredibly easy – Nidai, Mioda, and Owari, who were also assigned to the waterfront that day. If it was one of them, he’d get their confession in no time.

But as the day progressed, no confession ever came. He made small talk with them continuously as they worked, but no one dropped so much of a hint that they were doing anything unusual the night before. He asked them all sorts of benign questions – what did I miss last night, what time did everyone else go to bed, and so on, and all he got was completely benign answers. Surely, these three would be less-than-subtle if they had seen _that_ going on in Sonia’s cottage.

As their work wrapped up, Souda’s stomach began to twist in knots, since now his fate depended purely on the success of Sonia or Tanaka. He tried suppress the worry, though, since he had only conversed with four of his classmates, so the probability that he had actually talked to the guilty individual rested at a cool 30%. That, and he was pretty sure that both of his allies had their shit together more than he did.

Souda kicked some sand at his feet as he headed back towards the hotel for dinner, taking his sweet old time on the way there, but since there was no use delaying the inevitable, he eventually worked up the courage to go inside. Upon opening the glass doors to the lobby, it was confirmed that he was among the last to arrive when he heard everyone’s voices chattering away upstairs. The students were always a bit livelier in the evening than they were in the morning.

He hobbled up the staircase, and immediately scanned the crowd for Sonia and Tanaka, who he found standing together and who appeared to be discussing something on the other side of the room, far removed from the rest of the bunch. _They’re probably talking about who they found,_ he thought. He watched them go on for a few moments – was that worry in her eyes? No, he was pretty sure he was imagining it. The two of them soon noticed Souda’s arrival and broke apart, with Sonia heading to a table to sit down and Tanaka going to fetch himself a drink.

Souda's first instinct was to head over to Sonia, but decided to pick the somewhat safer of the two options to talk to first. He bounded over to Tanaka, who was pouring himself a glass of ice water, and jammed himself right into his side with little regard for his personal space. Tanaka grunted, having partially spilled his drink, and now had the cold liquid dripping down his hand. He jerked his arm away from Souda while a small rodent emerged from his scarf to chitter angrily at the offender.

“Hey, so I saw you talkin’ to Sonia-san,” Souda said. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching.

Tanaka didn’t move, keeping his head facing forward as he wiped his hand off with a napkin. “…What do you want?”

“…You know!” he nudged him, bringing his voice down to a whisper. _“Who was it?”_

He appeared to flinch at the question. He scrunched his shoulders together, and slowly rotated his body towards Souda with a look of death in his eyes. “…We were going to ask _you._ ”

That wasn’t the answer he expected. Souda’s expression went blank. His jaw quivered as he made an attempt to form words, barely able to string together a sentence as his mind processed the implication of his response. “Y-You… You didn’t… find anyone…?”

“No, we have not the slightest hint!”

“No one?!”

“Not one soul!”

Souda gritted his teeth, bringing his head in close to Tanaka's. “Are you fucking _kidding me!?_ ”

“Believe me, we investigated every wretched fiend on this island!” he said. “No one gave us anything that could even remotely be construed as a lead! We have _nothing!”_

This was exactly what they had feared would happen. They both looked back towards Sonia, who was sitting peacefully across the dining hall with her dinner in front of her. One of them was going to have to break this news to her. Tanaka turned his attention to Souda, who looked like he was ready to keel over, and gave him the look.

Souda shook his head violently. “… _No_ way!! Absolutely not! I can’t be the one to tell her! She’s gonna kill me!”

“I have already offered her my findings! It is your turn to walk into hell!”

“C’mon! You gotta help me!” he whined. “You guys are gonna have to hold a funeral for me! I’m toast! I haven’t even written a will!”

He forced out a sigh at Souda’s pathetic whimpering. “…Fine. As a generous king, I suppose I can spare _another_ favor. But let it be known that after this, you will be owing me lifetime of servitude.”

Souda stayed behind and observed as Tanaka snaked over to the princess’s table, where she greeted him with a soft smile, and leaned down towards her to deliver the bad news. Souda couldn’t hear what they were saying from his position, but watched as he whispered something unintelligible into her ear. Her shoulders immediately fell. A few more inaudible words were exchanged between the two of them, paired with some flailing arms and heated facial expressions – he could tell it was going over about as well as he had expected – and finally, they halted and jerked their heads in his direction. A shiver crawled up his spine. Tanaka, with murder in his eyes, motioned for Souda to come join them.

Souda slinked towards the two of them, trying to force a toothy grin to alleviate the tension. However, it appeared as though Sonia, trained as she was to maintain a cool front in the face of pressure, had quickly regained her bearings. She combed a hand through her hair and fixed her posture, sitting up straight to face them. “…Why don’t you boys have a seat?” she said, in a tone that was considerably less upbeat than usual.

They slumped down in their chairs with their plates in front of them, but the food was left untouched, with no one in the mood to indulge in their current condition. They rested their heads in their hands. At least when they were in this same position that morning, there wasn’t the threat of imminent self-destruction on the horizon. Now, there was a hard deadline, and with no plan to move ahead, it was approaching like a freight train.

“Unbelievable…” Souda mumbled. “This should’ve been easy. Un- _fucking_ -believable.”

“In theory, it should have been…” Sonia's forehead creased as she put an inquisitive hand to her chin. “…There is no way we missed anyone, did we? I trust our investigation was thorough.”

“I assure you, none of those fiends slipped through my grasp,” Tanaka said. “As I was assigned, I conversed with Pekoyama, Hinata, Nanami, and Togami, who each offered me strong evidence that they were with the others at the party until the very end. Even with my heightened senses, I detected no hint that their testimonies were false.”

“And I, as well,” Sonia said. “I spoke with Komaeda, Kuzuryuu, Saionji, Koizumi, and Tsumiki. They all seemed quite trustworthy to me. I would like to believe I am a good judge of character.”

“And I hit up the rest. Mine should have been obvious,” Souda said. “Trust me, I grilled Hanamura _extra_ hard. If it were him, he’d have been asking if we were gonna bring him to the next one.”

"We'll see about that,” Sonia said, her brow lowering. “For now, we’re back to square one.”

They had now wasted a solid eight hours over the course of the day only to come up empty-handed. The nighttime announcement was in less than 5 hours, and at that time they would need to retire to their rooms per Monokuma’s orders. The ticking of the clock, barely audible over the sound of their classmates, only served to remind them of their swiftly approaching deadline.

“Soooo…” Souda said, leaning back with his arms crossed. “Now what?”

Sonia steepled her fingers in front of herself. “Well… I suppose we will just have to do this the hard way, won’t we?”

“The… hard way?”

“What I mean is,” she explained, “we will have to narrow our search by interpreting the clues they left behind. Perhaps due to us being separated, we were not able to find an answer on our own, but as a team maybe we can solve our mystery. There must be some way to come to a conclusion.”

“But remember, Monokuma stated his penalty would apply if we brought him the wrong individual,” Tanaka said. “And time is not exactly on our side.”

She nodded. “I realize it is not ideal, but this may be our only choice. We should begin by narrowing our list to our most likely suspects.”

“If we’re going for most likely, we should probably eliminate all the girls, then,” Souda said. “It’s gotta be a dude who was going for Sonia’s window. Why else would someone be over there?”

“I don’t know if I would quite make such an assumption. We do not yet know the intent of the individual. That, and I do not sense that any of the other males would seek pleasure in such a manner,” Tanaka said.

He exhaled. “I guess you got a point, there. Unless, y’know, the other guys are better at hiding it…” Souda glanced over at the boisterous gathering of students on the other end of the room. “But still, as far as the rest of the dudes creepin’ on us… Togami’s a definite ‘no’, unless he was spying on us for some reason… Nidai’s too decent of a guy, same with Hinata… maybe, I guess… Kuzuryuu might be a yakuza, but moral-wise he’s practically a choir boy… and Komaeda’s, well, who knows about that kid.”

“I agree with Tanaka-san. It may not be for that reason at all. And perhaps, there is the off chance that our suspect was not coming for me, but for you two,” Sonia said, and tilted her head towards them. “As I have read about, there is a type of girl known in Japan as the _fujoshi,_ who –“

“–Eyaaagh! Let’s consider that possibility last!”

“…Regardless, it would be a wise decision to analyze this through multiple angles,” Tanaka said. “As the keeper of the All-Seeing Eye, the burden of which has been placed upon me since birth, my perception of this world is beyond that of creatures from the mortal realm. If you would lend me your ears, I would be willing to offer my own suggestions.”

Souda crossed his arms. “Yeah, yeah… just leave out the extra crap and get on with it.”

Tanaka flashed him a glare and cleared his throat. “Considering the noise… all we know at this time is that someone fell from the far edge into the water. We do not know if the broken board caused the fall or came as a result of it. From this clue, we can perhaps assume that the perpetrator is either someone with poor coordination, someone in a state of advanced inebriation, someone whose mass exceeds that of the average human, or – as it has already been suggested – someone seeking to indulge in their lustful desires… or a combination of these things.”

“So… someone clumsy, someone drunk, someone heavy, or someone perverted,” Souda said.

“Someone clumsy… that could only be Tsumiki, right?” Sonia asked. “And as far as drunkenness goes, I do believe Mioda and Nidai are our main offenders as far as I observed before I left.”

“And someone perverted, which’d be Hanamura, obviously, but it ain’t him,” Souda said. “And someone heavy – Togami and Nidai are the only ones I can think of.”

Sonia’s eyes lit up as a piece seemed to click together in her mind. “See there… did you see what you just said?”

“Huh?”

“The only person we named twice…” she brought her voice down. “…Nidai.”

“You can’t mean… “ Souda slumped back in his chair. “No way! It can’t be him! The guy’s a saint!”

“It is simply the principle of Occam’s Razor,” Tanaka stated. “That which requires the least amount of logical leaps is likely the correct answer. Not to say it is him for certain, but at this point – considering what else we have to work with – he is our top suspect.”

He shook his head. “It couldn’t be! He was at the party when I left!”

“And so were the others,” he replied. “When I departed, only Sonia was not present, as she should have been. Therefore, our suspect had to have left sometime after I escaped. Did you notice anyone else missing before you went to Sonia’s cottage?”

“N-No… I remember being in a circle with the other guys, and I don’t remember anyone else leaving before me.”

“Then we have reason to believe you were followed,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Did you do anything that would have given any of those fiends a reason to follow you?”

“No! Of course not! I just told ‘em I was leavin’, and–“

“You announced your departure?”

“I-I… I didn’t mean to, but they noticed, a-and…”

“… _They?_ Who encompasses ‘they’?”

He swallowed hard. Tanaka and Sonia’s gazes intensified, staring him down as they waited for an explanation. Souda stumbled over his words. “I-I, uh… I think it was, uh… kind of a bunch of ‘em. Err, Hinata, Komaeda, Nidai, and Togami, for sure. Every guy except Kuzuryuu and Hanamura. They were all in the circle before I left, I think.”

Tanaka groaned and rubbed his forehead, now realizing that Souda had done exactly what he had told him not to do. To Sonia, though, it was just another step closer to solving their mystery. “That’s another strike against Nidai. It seems we will have to investigate him first.”

“Are you kidding me?” Souda whined. “Seriously, isn’t there anyone else it could be? There’s no way!”

“What is the matter? Are you intimidated by him?” Tanaka asked. “Nidai is no threat, and if it is not him, we will move on. If we waste an eternity arguing over who to interrogate first, we will get nowhere.”

“Then let’s find him, shall we?” said Sonia.

They scanned the crowd, looking for any sign of the hulking behemoth of a man towering over the rest of their classmates, but the top of his head was nowhere to be seen. It was about that time that they noticed the dining room was a few decibels quieter than usual – evidently, Nidai had already left. The three of them had gotten off to a bit of a late start for dinner, so it wasn’t anything too strange that some of the others were beginning to finish up at that point. Since the gap between dinner and the nighttime announcement was usually a short period of time where they were allowed to relax, they were usually eager to split ways.

“Great, now we gotta hunt this guy down?” Souda asked.

“He couldn’t have gone far,” Tanaka said. “But perhaps we should create a false pretense to explain why we are approaching him. To give us a backup story, of sorts, in case he is not our culprit.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Tanaka raised his brow, “we could say something was stolen from Sonia’s cottage last night around the time of the party, and we could ask if he saw any suspicious activity. A piece of jewelry, perhaps. The two of us would simply be there helping her track it down.” He gestured towards Sonia, who nodded in support.

She put a hand to her chin. “Yes… I think that could work. An old Nevermind family heirloom, we could say. You do always think of such great ideas, Tanaka-san!”

Souda sneered. “Alright, alright, let’s get a move on. Stolen jewelry, got it. C’mon then, let’s find him before he disappears on us.” He stood up abruptly, yanking his plate off the table to put it away, and his two conspirators followed suit. Without hesitation, they rushed down the stairs and through the lobby doors into the warm glow of the evening light, where the next phase of their search would begin.

The interrogations.


	6. The Investigation, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted these two chapters at the same time, so if you haven't read part 1 of the investigation yet, make sure to hit that up first!

Luckily, their search for Nidai didn’t take very long. There, just on the other side of the pool deck, was the manager reclining in one of the white patio chairs with pair of sunglasses on, accompanied by a glass of what looked to be tomato juice at his side. Souda motioned for his partners to follow, and they shuffled over to where the guy was seated to interrupt his peaceful relaxation.

Nidai caught them approaching before they could get anything out first. “Evening!” he bellowed, and lowered his sunglasses with a finger. “What are you three up to?”

“Hey-y-y…” Souda began, twirling his braid. He hadn’t given himself time to think up a great conversation starter yet, so he decided to pass the torch right away onto Sonia, who had considerably higher charisma and quick-thinking skills than he could ever hope to possess. “…Say, we were gonna ask you about something. _Sonia-san_ , why don’t you go ahead?”

She gave the mechanic a side-eye, but carried on without skipping a beat. It wouldn’t be very hard to trick the coach into believing their fake story. “Nidai-san, after I returned to my cottage last night, I noticed an important item missing from my jewelry box this morning. It was a… an old, silver chain necklace, with the Novoselic insignia on the clasp. Nothing extravagant, but it was important to me, and I fear it may have been stolen sometime near the end of the party.”

“…Stolen?” he sat up, growing a look of concern on his face. “A crime! But I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong person if you’re wondering if I remember anything from last night.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “…The wrong person? How so?”

“You didn’t hear about that little event that went down after you left?” he asked. “I know I told Souda already, but I’m surprised you two didn’t hear!”

The two of them turned their heads towards Souda, who shrugged, giving them both a look of _‘I didn’t know it was important’_ to get them off his back. Tanaka tilted his head up. “…Hear about what?”

“The drinking contest, of course!” he said, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Gyahaha! You missed quite the spectacle!”

Sonia bobbed her slightly. “N-No, that’s right! I did pick up on a few bits and pieces about it from speaking with everyone today, but I did not hear the firsthand account. I-I mean, since we do not have such customs in Novoselic, would you mind telling me a bit more?”

“Hmm… I suppose I can tell it again, but trust me, it gets a little hazy near the end. Ha ha!” he laughed. “Alright, sure. If Souda doesn’t mind listening to me ramble on about it some more, that is.”

“No, it’s fine! Go ahead!” Souda answered.

He began his story. “Anyways… I remember Souda leaving, and then, well, we hung around a bit more…” He stroked a hand down to the point of his beard. “But then, Owari – feisty one, that girl – she comes up to me and suggests we have some sort of drinking contest with the remainder of Monokuma’s stash. Now, by all means, I should’ve said no – it was a work night, we had to get up early this morning, and damn, it wasn’t even close to a fair fight – but who am I to say no to some friendly competition? So I took her up on it.”

“And you won, right?”

“Technically, yes, if we’re going by pure quantity. But as far as who took it better? Owari, no question. She’d practically eaten half the food at the party before challenging me, so she barely felt a thing. Togami was already getting pretty irritated by this point, since he’d told us not to overdo it, and here we were, overdoing it. And me, I kept pushing it. Testing my limit. You know how you’re at your peak, and you think to yourself, ‘I’ll just have another, I’ll be fine’? Well, then it hits you, and lemme tell you, I _wasn’t_ fine. By the end of it, they had to drag me back to my cottage before the Monokuma announcement hit. Took a team of three of ‘em to haul me back! That’s about where things got a little fuzzy.”

Tanaka shook his head, seemingly unimpressed by the infantile antics of his classmates, but Sonia was wholeheartedly intrigued by his account. She then had to remind herself why they were asking him these questions. “…Do you remember who brought you back?”

“Haha, excellent question! All I know is I woke up in my cottage this morning feeling like death warmed over,” he said. “Luckily, Hinata told me all about it. Apparently he, Tsumiki, and Koizumi were kind enough to tuck me in. Nice people we got around this joint!”

“You seem to have fully recovered, in any case,” Tanaka said.

“Yes!” he proclaimed, and held up his glass of tomato juice, the ice cubes inside jiggling away. “Miracle cure! Nothing better than some good ol’ hydration to replenish those electrolytes. Drank it all day and all night, and feeling better than ever. Like it never happened!”

That seemed to be the end of it. As Souda had already been aware of from hearing the exact same story earlier that day, Nidai’s testimony seemed valid, and Sonia and Tanaka appeared likewise convinced. This meant they would have to do a bit more digging.

“Well… thank you for your time, Nidai-san. We will have to try some of the others,” Sonia said.

He pushed his sunglasses back up and leaned into his chair. “No problem. Hope the necklace turns up!”

“The necklace… right!” She had almost forgotten already. “Thank you!”

She put a hand on the two boys’ backs and pushed them in the direction of the cottages, leading them to a spot where they could discuss their next course of action in private. The group made a left turn over to the girls’ side of the cabins, where Sonia then quietly led them over near her own front step. As of that moment, they were the only ones present in the immediate area, and so they ducked into the shadow of the overhanging roof to hide themselves. They bunched together near her door.

“As much as it pains me to admit it…” Sonia sighed, putting a hand to her face. “Souda, you were right. If the others’ accounts hold true, Nidai must be innocent.”

A wide grin grew on Souda’s face, and he puffed his chest up with his sudden burst of confidence from her acknowledgement of his correct intuition. It was short lived, however, as they were soon reminded that they were still completely lost without a prime suspect. “…Great. But who’s next?”

Tanaka leaned against one of the wooden support beams. “If I may add my divine input, my suspicion now falls on the three that supposedly brought him back to his cottage.”

“Ya think so?” Souda asked. “But they’re the ones who’d have an alibi for that time, wouldn’t they?”

“For bringing him back, yes, but according to his testimony, they had brought him before the 10 p.m. announcement. Our suspect had also made their dreadful appearance before the announcement had occurred, since it hadn't gone off until _after_ the two of us had returned to our own cottages. That leaves a small window of time where they could have been prowling around after putting him in his room, and before going to bed themselves.”

“That means… our next suspects are Hinata, Tsumiki, and… Koizumi?” Sonia questioned. Even to her, it seemed unlikely. But both she and Tanaka had spoken to each of them earlier that day, and while all three had all mentioned something about the Nidai incident, they hadn’t said anything about what occurred after they had secured him in his bedroom. He was right – it could have happened after.

“Really though… those three?” Souda asked. “Ain’t there some other kinda clue we could go off of? What about those footprints you saw last night?”

Tanaka drew his eyes toward the spot where he had originally witnessed them. “It’d be a waste of time. The evidence is long gone.” He stepped over to the edge of the water and lowered his body, examining the edge of the wooden walkway, and grazed a hand across its surface. A few of the scratch marks remained upon close inspection, but it was nothing significant enough to work off of.

“But if they’d have been dunked in the water, they’d have been all wet, right? Why don’t we look for _that_ person?”

He turned his head back at him. “We were at a beach party, Souda. Almost everyone should have come in contact with water at some point. It’s _a waste of time.”_

Souda had opened his mouth to retort, but Sonia broke apart their conversation, stepping in between them before anything could erupt. “Well then, let us proceed to our next suspects. We should not delay another moment with petty squabbling.”

“In that case, based on our previous suggestion, then the person I would like to suggest is the clumsy one,” Tanaka stated. “Tsumiki.”

Tsumiki was an odd suspect. While innocent in appearance and meek in demeanor, the Super High-School Level Nurse _did_ have somewhat of an air about her that she could be hiding something below that unassuming presentation. At face value, she was entirely nonthreatening, but one couldn’t help but feel a sense of creepiness ease over them whenever she brought up her peculiar interest in shots or delighted others in her extensive knowledge of obscure and gruesome medical procedures. Did she also take an interest in voyeuristic endeavors? The possibility wasn’t at 0%. They could have been imagining these things about her, but then again, maybe they weren’t.

Sonia was hesitant to follow his suggestion, but finally agreed. “Then it’s settled. Let us ask Tsumiki before we change our minds again.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tsumiki was a bit more of a search, and the large size of the island chain wasn’t doing them any favors to save them time. The trio ran all the way to both the pharmacy on the second island and then to the hospital on the third, the two spots where they expected her to turn up, only to find no one at either location. Instead, after all that distance, they finally stumbled across her in the hotel lobby where they should have looked first, joined up with Saionji and Mioda, who she was watching play a game on one of the arcade systems. It was a rare sight to see the machines not occupied by Nanami during her free time, but either way, with Tsumiki off to the side, hopefully they could get in some quick questions before anyone else butted in.

That is, before Mioda heard the door opening and immediately whipped her attention towards the three of them walking inside. “Hey-ooo~! Do my ears deceive me? Look who it is!” Saionji, on the other hand, was less than enthusiastic upon seeing who had walked in the door.

“…Look who the cat dragged in.”

She had never made it any secret about her disdain for Sonia, and puffed up her cheeks in reaction to seeing the radiant princess making her appearance accompanied by the two boys. She refused to acknowledge them beyond her initial greeting, instead turning her head back down at the arcade game they were playing and mumbling a few impolite words to Mioda, who drooped her shoulders.

“…Aww! You don’t think it’d be fun to let them join us?” Mioda complained. Sonia seemed to pick up on what had evidently been whispered to her, and reassured them that they didn’t mean any harm by intruding on their fun.

“It is quite alright. We’re just here to ask a few things to Tsumiki, that is all,” she said.

Tsumiki, not expecting to hear her name, seemed to jump in response. “M-Me?”

“Oh. Okay then!” Mioda shrugged it off and resumed their game, the machine pinging and beeping away as the two girls mashed buttons across from one another. With those two distracted, the three of them made their way over to the nurse, whose lip quivered in fear as they approached.

“W-What do you want… m-me for…?”

“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” Sonia said, attempting to speak slowly to relax her. “But we are interested in asking you a few things about last night.”

“L-Last night?”

She nodded. “A piece of jewelry went missing from my cottage sometime between the end of the party and this morning, and we were wondering if you saw anything suspicious taking place during that time."

Her knees seemed to tremble. While the three of them had not intended to be threatening, they very much gave off the impression that they were ganging up on the poor girl. “…Y-You’re blaming me for it, aren’t you?”

“No, of course not!” She held her hands out to subdue her, but the nurse was already on the verge of tears.

“I-I would never…! I-I would never do such a terrible thing! W-W-Why are you coming to me…?”

Tanaka was unphased by her display. “We are simply wondering what happened last night after Nidai was returned to his cottage. Did you proceed _directly_ to your room, or was there other activity that took place before your infernal slumber?” Unlike Sonia, Tanaka’s presence absolutely _was_ threatening, and his interrogation technique only proved to make things worse.

“I-I didn’t take it! I didn’t take anything…!”

Souda clenched his teeth. Seeing them making the nurse this upset was tough to watch, even if he did want to uncover their guilty party just as bad as they did. He looked over at his two partners and jumped into the conversation. “H-Hey… Y’know, I think she’s genuine, guys…”

Tsumiki sniffled, rubbing an arm across her face. “I… I-It’s okay if you want to blame me. E-Everyone always does. B-But I promise I went s-straight to bed after making sure Nidai-san was okay. Hinata-san was kind enough to lead me back to my cottage in the dark!”

“Hinata, huh?” he said. While he wouldn’t dare consider his soul friend to be the perpetrator, Tsumiki’s remark meant they could verify her claim with him to make sure her account was credible. Not that he didn’t believe her, but it would be a safe bet that would for sure knock out another suspect.

“Then we shall pay Hinata a visit, shouldn’t we?” Sonia said. “Thank you, Tsumiki-san.”

Before they could even turn around to leave, a grating, childlike voice could be heard tossing a jab at them from the direction of the arcade machine. “Nice job making Tsumiki cry, you bullies!”

“…Really? You’re one to talk!” Souda bit back.

She stuck her tongue out at him, but Sonia, knowing that they could easily ask the other two girls some questions while they were here, viewed this as an opportunity to advance their investigation and quickly motioned for him to shut up. “…What about you two?” she asked. “Did you see any strange activity going on, concerning an item stolen from my cottage last night?”

“Psh! Don’t they teach you how to lock doors in Novoselic?” she said, causing Sonia to bristle, but she kept quiet. “No, of course we didn’t see anything. Me and big sis Mioda and some of the other guys were following those idiots back to Nidai’s cottage because the old man couldn’t control himself, and then after they put him down, Mr. Porkfeet forced us all to go to bed! He even did door checks to make sure we were all inside so we couldn’t even go mess with the guy and draw on his face an' stuff. What a totally lame-o party pooper!”

“Ibuki thought it would be a good idea to stick Nekomaru-chan's hand in a bucket of warm water, but Byakuya-chan didn’t seem to think that would be very funny…” the other girl giggled.

Saionji shot the trio another condescending glare. “And speaking of party poopers, you three couldn’t even stay up that late? What are you guys, the retirement club? You losers!”

“That’s a little unnecessary, don’t ya think?” Souda said, his brow flattening.

“No… that is quite all we need from you! Thank you very much, Saionji-san!” Sonia said, and did a quick bow to show her appreciation.

“…Don’t thank me!” she said, taken aback at the polite gesture. “Now get out of here, you bullies! Leave us alone!”

They spun around and hightailed it out the door, where the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon. With the darkness settling in any moment, they would have to start wrapping things up for the night soon.

“Well, that was a waste of our time,” Souda grumbled.

“Not necessarily,” Sonia said. “Actually, I believe Saionji’s testimony offered us a valuable clue.”

Tanaka raised his brow. “And what’s that?”

“That is…” she began, “if her account holds true, and Togami-san truly made everyone go to bed after they put Nidai into his room, then no one should have been wandering around at that time. Then that means–”

“-It must have happened before!” he interjected, the piece clicking together in his head. “Between the time that Souda departed and when Nidai was dragged to his bedroom, one of them must have made their diabolical escape!”

“But… Togami was keepin' a pretty close eye on things, and he don’t seem like the type to miss out on that kinda detail,” Souda said. “Besides, no one else mentioned anything about someone leavin’ early, did they? I thought we got most of the story outta Nidai.”

“Nidai’s account was not perfect. It would be safe to assume that he may have missed a few minor details while at the peak of intoxication. However, one of the other fiends who was present at the event might be able to grant us their wisdom.”

“Then we should probably ask Hinata,” he said. “...And we can ask him about Tsumiki’s story then, too.”

Sonia clasped her hands together. “Then let us proceed! We should not waste another moment!” Eager as ever, she grabbed the boys by the arms and pulled them back towards the cottages, where Hinata would likely be found in his room.

 

* * *

 

 

They knocked a few times on Hinata’s door, hoping the boy hadn’t gone to bed already. It took a few seconds, but the latch finally clicked, and he peeked his head out the opening to see who it was.

The trio noticed a look of surprise on his face when his face emerged. He swung the door wide open. “Souda? _You_ guys? What bring you here so late?”

“Hinata! We got somethin’ to ask you!” Souda exclaimed.

Seeing Souda accompanied by these two was an odd sight, and Hinata's eyes darted between the him and his two partners as they stood right outside his room. He leaned against the door frame, cocking his head to the side to listen. “Sure, I guess. What is it?”

He was a bit more enthusiastic about speaking to Hinata than he had been to the others. He brought up their fake story once more. “Listen! Someone stole some kinda jewelry-thing from Sonia-san’s cottage last night around the end of the party, and we wanna know if you saw anything weird goin’ on!”

"A necklace..." Tanaka corrected.

“And you’re… helping her look?” Hinata’s eyes narrowed, and he directed his attention towards Sonia. He pointed a finger at Souda. “Is he bothering you?”

“N-No, he is quite alright!” she said. “Souda-san is being helpful for once, thankfully.”

Souda looked behind his shoulder, mumbling _‘for once?!’_ under his breath, before Tanaka gave him a jab to continue. He snapped his head back towards his friend standing in the doorway. “Right… Anyway, we were wondering if you saw anyone leave early last night after I left. Like, before you guys took Nidai back.”

He cracked a smile. “Ha ha… it’d be hard to say. Basically, after you left, I went back and talked to Kuzuryuu for a while because I felt kinda bad that he’d been left out with us all standing by the water, and that's when the commotion started. With all that noise going on, I'm sure anyone could've probably taken off without being seen.”

“The commotion?” Tanaka asked. “You mean… the drinking contest?”

“Yes, Nidai had told us a bit about that, but his recollection was hazy," Sonia added.

“Yeah, I bet it was. I’m sure he didn’t tell you about the 'fun' part, either…” Hinata winced, and recalled back to the scene that had taken place the night before, with the vivid recollection of Nidai thundering out a drunken, slurred victory roar of “I AM _NEKOMAAAOOOUUUUUUU!!”_ firmly etched into his auditory memory, followed by a glass bottle being slammed into one of the tables and Togami’s infuriated cry of “THAT’S QUITE ENOUGH!!” ringing out across the beach.

“So it got pretty wild, I take it?” Souda asked.

“…All I’m saying is, Togami was the one in charge, and he was hurrying to clean up all those glass shards and trying to wrestle with Nidai to get him to settle down. Between that, yeah, I guess someone could have theoretically left unnoticed. The only people for sure that were with me the whole time was Tsumiki and Koizumi, plus Togami, who escorted us back. The rest of the group had followed us, too, but it was dark out, and I was kinda preoccupied trying to keep Nidai from falling over.”

“Tsumiki also tells us you brought her back to her room afterward, is that correct?” Sonia asked, to verify the other claim that was made.

He scratched his head. “Oh yeah, we did. Togami and I made sure she got back alright, because she was a little freaked out at all the action. Togami was trying to get everyone in their rooms before the announcement so we wouldn't get in trouble.”

Hinata’s testimony effectively cleared all five of them from the suspicious persons list. Each one of their stories matched up without a doubt, so each one of them had an alibi for the entire time period where the incident could have taken place. And if Hanamura’s remark from earlier was genuine, that left Komaeda, Pekoyama, Kuzuryuu, Nanami and Owari as suspects, and while Saionji’s story also aligned with the others, she and Mioda could not be cleared of guilt until it could be verified with Togami.

“So… you don't know who was all there when you left?” Souda asked.

Hinata shifted his weight onto his other leg. “If you ask me, I think your best bet would be to ask Togami. He could’ve missed something during the whole mess, of course, but if anyone had seen, it would’ve been him.”

“That is who we will ask next, then. Thank you for your time, Hinata-san,” Sonia said.

“Alright then. I hope your thing turns up, though. If you need anything, lemme know. I’ll make sure to keep an eye out.” Hinata retreated back into his room and clicked the door shut behind him, leaving the trio in the cover of darkness to plan their next step. The sun had now fully ducked below the horizon, and the humid evening air was sticking to their skin even in the cooling temperatures. They’d need to hurry if they were to catch Togami before the nighttime announcement.

“C’mon! Maybe that guy’s in his cottage too!” Souda spun around, and the other two followed him to the building that was just next door. They only managed to make it a few steps before they were interrupted by a familiar hammy voice behind them. They stopped in their tracks.

“Upupu… where do you think you’re going?”

 _Monokuma_. They turned around to face him, and the bear greeted them with an innocent wave. It was clear he had no business being there, so he had to be up to no good.

“What do you want?!” Souda sneered.

He chuckled, tottering a few steps toward them with his paws clasped behind his back. “Oh, nothing. Isn’t it getting a little late for you kids to be out doing all this hard work? You should be going to bed.”

They were well aware of what he was trying to do. Sonia spoke coolly. “…You’re stalling us, aren’t you, Monokuma-san?”

“Stalling?! Why, I would never!” he scoffed. “I was just coming to see your progress. Have you found your suspect yet?”

They flinched. “W-We… we are making progress, but–”

“But?”

She closed her eyes, forcing the grim realization to settle in once more. “…No, we have not.”

His sharktoothed grin stretched across his face. “Upupu, I’m just messing with you. I knew you hadn’t,” he said. “I’ve been keeping tabs on you bastards all day. You’re cutting this awfully close to the deadline, you know.”

“Shut up! We got ‘em narrowed down to half!” Souda said.

“If you would leave us be, we could continue our search, you wretched creature,” Tanaka growled.

Monokuma laughed at their steadfast determination. “You’ve got them down to half? Well, great work! Except your time is almost up,” he said. “There’ll be no staying up past the 10 p.m. announcement to do any more searching, because I can’t have you bothering the rest of your classmates when they need their beauty sleep for work tomorrow. And I won’t be allowing you to skip your morning assignments, either. That leaves you a little less than an hour between waking up and going to work, and another hour at 11 a.m. when you all go to lunch. If you think about it that way, your time is almost up!”

Truthfully, they hadn’t thought of it. Since the deadline was at noon tomorrow, they had been given the illusion that they had more than twelve hours to conduct their final search. But with all of them separated again for work in the morning, and the nighttime announcement around the corner, Monokuma was right – they had barely over two hours to work together.

“Monokuma-san, even if you attempt to scare us, we are not going to give up,” Sonia said. But deep down, her heart pounded, and she knew they were cutting it _far_ too close.

“Scare you? I’d never go out of my way to scare you,” he said, and turned his back to them to begin walking away. “In the meantime, I’ll just be getting the tapes ready for tomorrow. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you all at the beach at noon.”

One could almost hear the sound of glass shattering. “The… the tapes?” Souda stammered. “…What tapes?”

“Oh, you know. _Those_ tapes. From the security cameras.” He said casually, and looked over his shoulder, an evil glint appearing in his eye. “…If you failed, I said I was going to tell everyone. I didn’t say _how_.”

The color drained from their faces. They stood on the walkway, frozen in absolute, unparalleled terror at what he had just revealed. When they had agreed to their deal, Monokuma had simply implied that he was going to inform the other students about their threesome – he never said he was going to _show them the video._ This added a new level of horror to their already awful predicament, and now it was more critical than ever that they needed to stop him before it was too late.

Tanaka’s cheeks began to broil, his temper to bubbling to the surface. “Y-You cannot…!” he went off, and began stomping towards the bear, who hopped away in the other direction. “You said _nothing_ about a recording, you vile, wicked wyrm! It’s entirely illegal! This is a vile act of deceit, of deliberate misdirection!”

“Is that so? Well, that’s the funny thing about bears!” Monokuma teased, gradually picking up his pace to escape the rapidly accelerating breeder. “The laws of society don’t apply to us! We can do whatever we want!”

Souda and Sonia rushed to grab him by the cloak before he could take a swing at Monokuma, and before they knew it, the irritating stuffed animal had vanished into the darkness. Tanaka pulled against their grip as the other two struggled to keep him reigned in.

“Tanaka-san, it is no use being angry with him now! It will only make things worse!” Sonia exclaimed, still clutching on his jacket. “All we can do now is finish what we started!”

Tanaka breathed deeply, seething like an enraged bull, while one of the tiny hamsters emerged from his scarf and nuzzled his chin to calm him down. He rubbed a finger atop its head, the effect seeming to work on him. While each of them had their reasons to be upset, and they definitely were, no one was more prideful than Tanaka, whose dignity would take a powerful blow from such a shame-inducing punishment.

She released her hold. “We _do_ have this almost figured out. Please be patient. I am sure we will make it.”

He exhaled, stalling for a few moments before opening his mouth. The redness began to disappear from his cheeks. “I shouldn’t…” he spoke quietly, and the other two leaned their heads in to listen. “…I should have never suggested that we go to Monokuma for assistance. Had I not been a fool, we would have never been in this situation to begin with.”

Sonia shook her head. “No, it isn’t your fault. It’s mine for saying yes. I rushed into it without thinking, and I apologize.”

“No, it ain’t your fault either,” Souda said. “It’s mine... for being an idiot and letting someone follow me in the first place. This wouldn’t’ve even happened if I’d have just been paying attention.” He didn't like admitting he had made a mistake in front of either of them, but he wasn't about to let Sonia take the blame either.

“Then… we’re all a bunch of bumbling idiots, aren’t we?” Tanaka mumbled.

A brief silence settled over them. All things considered, their situation had been the result of a series of bad decisions that led up to that point. If they had only done this, if they had only done that... it was too late to go back. Now they were left patching up the series of holes they had blown in their own ship.

“You’re right,” Sonia said, which surprised them both, as they had expected her to shoot down his remark. “We are. But that is okay. No amount of blame-tossing or anything like that is going to take us back to where we started, so the most we can do is work together as best as we can and power through these last few hours.”

She did have a charm about her that soothed their frayed nerves. Both Souda and Tanaka looked at one another, unsure of what to add, and Souda proceeded to turn his eyes down at his feet.

Sonia reassured him. “We’ll just have to hold our heads up high and give it our best. And if worse comes to worst–”

“…We’ll pack our bags and move out of the country?”

“No, of course not,” She put a delicate hand under his chin to lift his head up. “We’ll just have to move on from it. But we’re close to our solution, I promise.”

“I’d like to kick the stuffing outta that bear, is what I’d tell ya,” Souda said, tapping his heel on the ground. “But whatever, it can wait. I'll leave that for when we get this over with.”

Tanaka crossed his arms and raised his voice up, seemingly back to his normal self. “It appears Monokuma has succeeded in stalling us, that is for certain. Is there any more time to pay Togami a visit tonight?”

He was right that they needed to move on. Since they were just outside of Togami's door, it would be easy to just knock and see if he was home.

They approached the front step and gave a few rough taps, and waited... and waited. With no light on inside his room, it seemed that Togami wasn't home. He was always amongst the last to return to his room after inspecting the place down. They made a second attempt to be sure, but no answer ever came.

“Unfortunately, we may have to resume this the morning,” Sonia said. “If we stay up any later, Monokuma may decide to punish us further. I’d like you both to get a good night’s sleep, because we have work to do."

“Then we shall resume in the morning. As I am decreeing it here and now, failure will _not_ be an option,” he stated, with an air of finality about it. “When the dawn arrives, I expect you to be ready to proceed.”

The three of them were reluctant to part ways, but knew they would have to split up before long. The darkness had long since settled, the announcement would be going off any time, and it was too late to be hunting down Togami at that hour without raising any suspicion. In the morning, they would rush to breakfast first to meet with him, as he usually arrived first to get best pickings. With that, they said their temporary goodbyes and returned to their respective cottages, hoping the next day would bring better details than the last.

They had now reached their final hours and the clock was counting down fast. If they didn’t uncover the identity of their culprit and soon, the entire island would know what went down that evening, and they’d be seeing it just as Monokuma had described – every last bit, at every single angle, and in excruciatingly vivid detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAWN OF THE LAST DAY: 5 HOURS REMAIN


	7. Dawn of the Last Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Souda gets them into a mess, gets them into another mess, gets them out of a mess, and then fucks everything up

“…We are so fucked.”

Souda’s eyes shot open with the 7 a.m. wake-up call that morning. Despite keeping himself awake for hours on end that night, drawing up endless lists and diagrams within his head detailing every possible situation and outcome that he could imagine, he couldn’t for the life of him come up with a single definite answer. His bloodshot eyes would make his lack of sleep a secret to no one.

He had barely had enough time to roll out of bed and get his contacts back in before a series of rough knocks arrived at his door.

_*thunk thunk thunk thunk!*_

“Ugh! I’m coming!” he yelled, tripping over his heels to get to the door. The knocking grew more intense with every extra second it took him to get there.

_*THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK–*_

“ _–_ I’m up! I’m up!” Souda said, swinging the door open and squinting in the morning light. There, as he had expected, was Sonia and Tanaka, who had arrived at his front step fully dressed and already ready to go, though one could not ignore the presence of the dark circles under their eyes as well. Souda evidently hadn’t been the only one up late last night.

Tanaka eyed him up and down. “…Why aren’t you ready? It’s nearly 7:05.”

“I am ready!” he said, and smoothed down the frazzled strands of pink hair that stuck out in every direction. “There!”

“Good. Come now, we have not a second to waste!” Sonia grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out of his cottage, where they broke out into a dead sprint through the pool deck and towards the hotel lobby in order to ensure that they were the first ones there.

Though the rushing wasn’t a bad idea to be safe rather than sorry, it was still the very crack of dawn, and the three of them were the only signs of life in the area since no one in their right minds was ever in a hurry to get to breakfast on a day when Monokuma’s cooking awaited. Due to this, they were the first to arrive in the restaurant by a longshot. They grabbed a table and collapsed into their chairs to catch their breath.

The sprinting had turned out to be overkill. A few excruciating minutes passed, minutes that could have been put towards doing something productive, and yet still they were the only ones there.

Souda tapped his fingers on the table, squishing his cheek up against his face with his other hand as they waited. “So… what happens if Togami _doesn’t_ know? We still gotta hit up all five of those other guys? Nanami, Komaeda, Owari, Kuzuryuu, _and_ Pekoyama? Man, talk about a pain in the ass...” Hearing the list said out loud made it sound like they weren’t even close to their answer, which actually wasn’t too much of a stretch from the truth.

“But… as far as those few, it seems strange that it would be one of them, don’t you think?” Sonia said, a twinge of uncertainty in her voice.

“…And what makes you say that?” Tanaka asked.

“It is because none of them share any of the characteristics we were looking for to begin with,” she said worriedly. “The clumsy, drunk, heavy, or perverted one, that is. Of the remaining five, who could it have been?”

Sonia was right – none of these individuals, at least on the surface, appeared to be the type to commit such an act. In fact, the characteristics of all five of them were almost the exact opposite of the suspect they had painted a picture of in their mind. They were not clumsy, drunk, heavy enough to break a wooden board, or perverted; but agile, featherweight, and generally accepted to be clean-minded individuals (save Owari, but she just had no shame and no filter) and in the case of Kuzuryuu, he had even been completely 100% sober. In addition, none of them had been near Souda when he left the party, making it odd to think he would have been intentionally followed.

The direction they were headed didn’t seem to make much sense. Unless someone was putting on a spectacular front, had come to her window for reasons they could not comprehend, and managed to fall off the edge without possessing any of the above characteristics, they felt at a loss.

…There was no way. It _couldn’t_ be one of them.

They paused their conversation to ruminate, and an eerie silence blanketed the room, with the only sound being heard was Souda nervously chomping away at his nails. A few more wasted minutes passed before anyone else arrived in the lobby. Just as they had prepared for, the heavy tromping up the stairs meant it could only be one person – Togami.

He stopped at the top of the staircase and eyed the group of three that were seated nonchalantly on the other end of the room. “…Good morning?” he greeted, seeming taken aback that someone had beaten him to the restaurant.

“Good morning, Togami-san!” Sonia called out, her voice light and airy. “Another beautiful day today, is it not?”

He did not appear to be fooled by their innocent welcome and began stepping over to their table. “…And what bring you three here at this time? Up to something?” he asked. A quick glance was made over his shoulder towards the food table. “…I trust you haven’t come to take all the bacon before me, have you? I won’t be standing for that kind of insubordination.”

“Not in an eternity’s passing…” mumbled Tanaka.

“No, of course not!” Sonia said. “Togami-san, we were only wondering if we could ask you a few questions before everyone arrived. They are slightly sensitive, so we feel it would be best to do so in private.”

Togami’s brow raised. “A private exchange, you say? Intriguing. I suppose I can spare a few minutes,” he said, his interest piqued, though an air of suspicion still surrounded him. “…But allow me to grab a few things, first.”

He took a minute to serve himself up a few pieces of everything that was set out for breakfast that morning, ending up with an inhuman amount of food for one person to eat, and carefully balanced each item into a small pyramid on his plate. He stepped back over to the trio’s table, where he pulled out a chair to take a seat.

He pushed his glasses up on his face. “Alright, now. What was it you wished to ask?”

Convincing Togami of the fake story was not going to be as simple of a task as it had been with the others, as he was easily the least gullible person on the island. On the other hand, Sonia was a near-expert at persuasion. They hoped it was at least a harmless enough lie to get a few things out of him, and if they were lucky, he wouldn’t look into it further. She sat up in her chair to begin weaving their tale.

“Togami-san, we know you were in charge of the party on the night before last, and after I went to bed that evening, an item of mine – a silver necklace, that is, an important family heirloom – it went missing from my cottage. We fear someone may have taken it before Nidai-san was returned to his cottage, and we have been desperately searching with no luck. Since you are always a rather astute observer, did you see anything suspicious take place that night?”

His forehead wrinkled with concern. “A stolen necklace, you say? I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything about this until now.” He paused for a moment to rip a huge chunk out of a piece of meat in front of him. “…Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I could have been helping you investigate. I would have been a much better choice than these two, for certain.” Tanaka’s lips tightened, drawing his eyes away from the other man’s grotesque eating habits.

“No, no, that’s quite alright!” she assured him. “We didn’t wish to bother you. We would simply like to know if you remember everyone’s whereabouts at that time, because that would help us solve our case.”

“If you insist. As much as it pains me to do so, I suppose I can interrupt breakfast to recall a few things,” he said, leaning back with his hands in his lap, his presence more like that of a CEO behind his desk rather than a high school student at breakfast. “Are you certain of the time frame in which it occurred?”

“It was sometime after I left, and before the Monokuma announcement, we’re pretty sure,” said Souda. Togami eyeballed him skeptically. “B-But it definitely wasn’t me, I swear. Or this guy. We’re, uh… we’re helping.” He pointed a thumb at Tanaka, who nodded accordingly.

He angled his head up. “…And Sonia did not hear anyone enter her cottage while she was inside? You must be quite the deep sleeper, I presume?”

“Y-Yes, you are right! The deepest!” she answered quickly. Togami had already begun punching holes in their story. Much to their misfortune, they had never thought to come up with a backup plan –if he managed to figure out the truth behind their story, they were toast.

“…Interesting. Quite interesting,” he replied coolly. “For any matter, I take it you’ve been investigating on your own, then? Have you received everyone’s input by this point?”

“Yes. Well…” She had to stop herself. Though they had technically spoken with everyone on the first day, it was nothing very in-depth. “…Almost. There are a few left we need to investigate more thoroughly, but–“

“You haven’t finished?” he said. “I think it would be more helpful if I could listen to what you have heard from everyone else first. That way I could verify who is lying and who is telling the truth.” He shifted backward, giving off the impression that he was finished with the conversation.

“W-We…!”

She wasn’t able to fit in a rebuttal before their attention was grabbed by another set of heavy feet tromping up into the restaurant. At the top of the steps emerged Owari, panting heavily from running the entire way there, and upon seeing the group of four seated at the table on the other end of the room hooked a disappointed fist through the air. “Aww, dammit! Togami beat me again!” Nidai’s head popped up their staircase not but a few seconds later, and he began following her over to the food table with a stern lecture on why she shouldn’t waste her training on trying to be the first to every meal.

Togami turned his head back towards the three of them. “…If that is all, I’ll be taking my leave for now. Come back to me when you’ve finished. I’ll be informing the others to keep their items secured, but until then, good luck.” He shoved an obnoxious bite of toast into his mouth before grabbing his plate, and lurched back his chair with a harsh scraping noise.

“W-Wait! We _have_ talked to everyone already, we swear! C’mon, dude, we’re in kind of a hurry!” Souda interjected, pushing himself up on both hands.

“…Sonia has just told me that you have not, and I’d take her word over yours,” he said firmly. “However, I suppose if you can manage to gather their testimonies before we all go to work, I’d be willing to meet with you here again for a few minutes once the others leave. I’d prefer to handle this as efficiently as possible.”

“Please! Can we just do it now and get it over with?!”

“You seem awfully concerned about this, for an item that doesn’t even belong to you,” Togami said, with a hint of distrust in his voice. “In any case, if it has already taken you this long, I trust it can wait a little bit more.”

They couldn’t tell him how painfully wrong he was. As Togami stepped over to his usual seat, they watched as the rest of their classmates began piling into the dining area one at a time, blissfully unaware of the impending doom that awaited their three friends if they didn’t take action shortly. In only a few short hours, Monokuma would be treating them all to an honest-to-god porno of their classmates – the sex tape scandal of the century – that which would go down in infamy in the fabled history of Hope’s Peak Academy to be remembered for generations to come. If the tapes got leaked, the internet would never let them forget. _“….Hey, did you see the video from that time the Princess of Novoselic got caught_ _having sex with some animal breeder and that dirty old mechanic?” “Yeah, they were terrible! I’ve watched nature documentaries with more action than that!”_ They were pretty sure that’s how it’d go.

The sound of the clock ticking only served to torment them about their swiftly approaching deadline. The current time was now 7:20, which gave them just a little more than a half-hour to work with if they wanted to leave enough time to approach Togami again.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let us begin our quest for justice!” Sonia shot up from her chair, and Tanaka and Souda followed suit.

While they only needed testimonies from the five individuals they had it narrowed down to, they would need to work fast if they wanted to make it to all of them before the time ran out. They had preferred not to conduct their search out in the open, but in the interest of time, they didn’t have any other choice. If they were lucky, the sight of all three of them approaching at the same time would be enough to cause their suspect to cave in.

But as the evidence was collected, and the last testimonies were gathered, there was nothing that was raising any red flags. To paraphrase a bit, the conversations went essentially as follow:

“Mmm… no, I was falling asleep, too. I followed all the others back to our cottages after Nidai won the contest. I didn’t see anything strange taking place... I think,” was Nanami’s response, and as narcoleptic as she was, it was believable enough.

“You’re right, I _am_ suspicious! It brings me such joy to see this terrible event bringing you three together to pursue a goal with such an extreme level of hope!” was Komaeda’s response, which made all three of them want to be sick. If Komaeda was deeming himself suspicious, it definitely wasn’t him. They moved on.

“Nah, I was followin’ the rest of those guys the whole time! I wouldn’t’ve left to go steal some borin’ ol’ necklace. We were havin’ too much fun!” was Owari’s response, and considering she was the other half of the drinking contest (and had stuck around long enough for Nidai to see she could handle her alcohol well), it didn’t make much sense for her to have left early.

“Huh? No, why the fuck would I have been watching your cottage? Go bother someone else,” was Kuzuryuu’s overly aggressive response, however, it was no more prickly than usual, so they decided not to push him further before they caused a scene.

“…No, I am afraid not. Regrettably, I was not as diligent as I would have liked to have been,” was Pekoyama’s response, likely referring to the single half-strength drink she had consumed.

While one of them could have easily been lying, this was negated by the fact that each of their claims had been backed up by at least one other individual – Komaeda’s alibi was confirmed by Nanami and vice versa, Kuzuryuu’s by Pekoyama and so forth, and Owari’s by Saionji and Mioda, who had also been following Nidai. Once again, all five of their recollections of the night aligned with everyone else’s: that they had watched the drinking contest, followed the rest of the group back, and gone straight to bed at the request of Togami.

They finished making the rounds with minutes to spare. All at once, the students began to file out of the restaurant to start heading to their stations. All but one, that is – Togami, as promised, had stayed behind to speak with them once more.

Upon the last person to exit the building, Togami approached their table as he had done before, where Sonia greeted him cordially.

“Thank you for agreeing to stay, Togami-san. We have done as you have asked us.” She was _sure_ now, after hearing everyone’s word on the matter, that the astute heir would be able to point out a weak testimony, and as such she had gained a confident smile. He was nearly all that remained between them and a solution.

He adjusted his glasses. “Excellent. You’ve gotten an account from everyone now?”

“Yes! Definitely! Positive!” Souda spat out. “Now c’mon, tell us everything you know!”

“Hmph. Very well,” he smirked, “but I’ll allow Sonia to go first. Tell me – what have the others said to you?”

Sonia gave him a quick run-down of everyone’s testimonies, starting with the five they had spoken to that morning, and then the ones they had asked the day before. Togami listened intently with his fingers intertwined in front of him, content with letting her speak, and bobbed his head up and down every few moments in affirmation to what he was being told. Souda and Tanaka leaned forward, their eyes fixed on him from across the table, bracing themselves for his final word on the matter.

She finished. “…And that is all of them. Togami-san, tell us… does anyone’s account seem strange to you?”

“Hmm...” He deliberated in silence while the three of them waited on the edge of their seats. The few seconds that passed were maddening, knowing their answer was only moments away. Finally, after much consideration, Togami opened his mouth to speak. “No. None of that sounds suspicious to me. In fact, all of this information checks out quite readily.”

“ _WHAT?!”_ Souda and Tanaka shouted simultaneously, launching themselves up onto their feet, while Sonia remained seated in her chair with a look of deep concern. She put a hand on the two boys to bring them back down.

“Th-That’s…” she stammered, holding a shaky hand to her face. “How could that be…?”

“…Mr. Tanaka, you are also quite suspiciously concerned about this item, I must say,” Togami added calmly. “However, I’ll tell you what I know. As I’m sure you understand, the party grew quite rowdy after you departed, and my attention was occupied primarily on Nidai to ensure the safety of him and the others. At about 9:40 p.m., we extinguished the torches and rounded up everyone we could find in the dark to herd them back to the hotel. Once we passed the gates at what I assume was 9:45, I performed a head count under one of the lamps to make sure everyone was there with us, and besides you three, everyone was present without a doubt.”

“Everyone was present?” Souda said.

“Everyone. And not one of them left my sight for the remainder of the evening. More so, I also made door checks at everyone’s cottages to ensure they were secured inside, all except for you three because I didn’t wish to disturb you after you had already gone to bed… but I am now thinking perhaps I _should_ have,” he said, once again eyeballing Souda and Tanaka. “So in conclusion, to assume that someone at the party had stolen an item from Sonia’s cottage between the time after all three of you left and when the rest of us returned seems like a fishy tale, if you ask me. In fact, this entire story is highly suspect. What kind of investigation have you been conducting with these two, exactly?”

They seized up with dread. If Togami had verified that everyone was with them after they got back to the hotel, then that meant _no one_ could have left early… could they? But someone definitely _had_. Something here wasn’t right.

Sonia rubbed a hand nervously. “We… we have only been going off of what we have been told by the others…”

“Well then,” he stated, “If you are really so certain that the item was _stolen_ , you need rethink your trust of others. Get rid of these preconceived notions of who you think it could and couldn’t be, and start completely over.”

He narrowed his eyes, glaring at them as they sat without another word, the three of them unsure of how to respond to his advice. If what he had said was true, then all the work they had conducted up to that point had been unraveled, like someone had taken a loose string from their investigation and pulled with all their strength. It was far too late in the process to be starting with an approach from a different angle, and they knew it.

There was nothing more they would be able to get from Togami, who had gotten up out of his chair and angled himself towards the exit. The three of them remained seated at their table in utter defeat.

“Thank you Togami-san. We will keep searching.” Sonia tried to keep a positive demeanor, but their outlook was falling fast, and the other two boys could feel it.

Togami took a few steps toward the stairs before halting himself, turning around to face them one last time. “Oh, and speaking of stolen goods…” he said, and his eyes fell directly upon Souda, who pointed at himself with a puzzled look.

“…Huh?”

“Did you ever return that hairdryer back where it came from?”

Souda’s head swiveled between Sonia and Tanaka, who were both looking at him, and gave a high-pitched chuckle. “Heh heh… what hairdryer?”

“Don’t play dumb. The one I saw you leaving Koizumi’s cottage with the other night,” he explained. “Koizumi had complained to me that you hadn’t returned it yet. I trust you will be doing so as soon as possible, correct? I’ll be checking in with you at lunch to make sure it’s been done.”

“At lunch?” Souda curled up his lip. “Can it wait? We’re kinda, uh... _busy_ , right around then, ya know?”

“No ‘but’s’. Get it done. Have a good day.”

As Togami walked away, Souda slammed his head down on the table, jostling the silverware on its surface. Both Tanaka and Sonia slumped down in their chairs, a black cloud of despair lingering over their whole group. Togami’s account was supposed to have moved their investigation forward, not send them hurtling backwards in a state of confusion.

“Well…” Tanaka spoke up, breaking their silence. “…Our final effort seems to have failed. One could glean from the pretentious one’s demeanor that he believed Souda and I to be at fault, which is _clearly_ impossible.”

“I just…” Sonia muttered. She drew her eyes away, muffling her speech through the hand she had rested her face on. “…I do not understand. How could everyone be accounted for during that time period?”

“It doesn’t make any fucking _sense!”_ Souda snapped, and whipped his head back up, his eyes glistening with tears. “We’re done! That’s it! They’re gonna see everything!” He pulled his beanie over his eyes to hide his pitiful expression from the others.

“There must be something! We will just have to try again like we had yesterday!” Sonia said.

“We _all_ know how well that went!” Souda yelled. “If we haven’t gotten anything by now, there’s no way we’re gonna find ‘em!”

“We have to be missing a crucial piece of evidence, Souda-san! Would you prefer to lay down and accept our deaths?”

“We’ve gotten _everything!”_ Souda argued. “Someone’s gotta be lying to us and we’re never gonna get ‘em to fess up if they haven’t already! We’re _fucked!”_

Sonia’s face reddened with frustration, and she had to restrain herself from lashing out at him, but Tanaka’s voice penetrated the tense atmosphere before they could get any more words between them.

His eyes were turned out the window. “Perhaps… Togami _is_ right, and we need to rethink our acceptance of those we’ve been trusting.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean? We could apply that to any one of those guys!” Souda said.

“Think about it,” he said, looking back at them. “Who have we been blindly trusting this entire time? Who has been the very cornerstone of everyone else’s testimony?”

It took them a second to figure out who he was implying by that statement. If they thought about it, there _was_ one person that everyone had based their stories around, one who they had spoken with just minutes ago, a person who they had been banking their trust on the entire time.

Sonia’s brow wrinkled. “You don’t mean… _Togami-san?”_

“Correct,” he said. “With no other evidence to go off of, he is my prime suspect. Consider it – we’ve been believing his and the other devils’ stories that he made sure everyone was in their cottages before the nighttime announcement. But who is to say that _Togami_ did not make one final check at Sonia’s cottage? Perhaps, _in her window_ , if he didn’t wish to knock?”

“N-No way! You think so?!” Souda said, widening his eyes at the revelation. “Holy shit… I bet you’re right! It _was_ that guy, wasn’t it?!”

Though Tanaka was confident in his assumption, and Souda was already sold on the idea, Sonia, however, did not seem as immediately convinced, even if she was normally the first to trust Tanaka’s instinct in any other circumstance. She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Togami-san… I know he is very persnickety about us, but to think he would commit such an invasion of privacy… I do not think even he would go so far…”

“It’s gotta be him! He’s the only one who would’ve been by himself that night!”

“But… his testimony to us would not make any sense,” Sonia said. “Why would Togami-san clear every other person of guilt, and therefore direct suspicion to himself?”

“I don’t… I don’t know! He’s just trying to mess with us or something!”

Tanaka backed up his claim. “He’s right. It may have been his attempt to cast us into disarray. Togami was present upon Souda’s departure and fits one of our descriptors. The evidence we have uncovered converges solely upon him!”

He had a point. At the end of the day, when everyone else’s accounts were combined, the suspicious party that remained…. was Togami. Under the principle of Occam's Razor, as Tanaka had explained earlier, more clues seemed to point towards him than anyone else. While Togami had stated to drop all their preconceived notions and start over from a new angle, he could have very well been trying to point the figure of suspicion away from himself and hoping they would drop it.

But with no piece of damning evidence, and no verbal confession to the crime, deciding upon Togami as their culprit would be a good guess at best. While they had time to spare before the cutoff, it was certainly not enough time to start over with everyone, and with all three of them horribly tired and fed up with their investigation, they were just ready to be done with it. There couldn’t possibly be anything left for them to uncover. At the point they were at, Togami would be their best bet – better than nothing, at the very least.

“…Maybe you are right,” she said softly. “It very well may be the best we can do, I suppose. We’ll need to decide upon someone soon. Would you like to consider Togami our final answer, then?”

They sat wordlessly, waiting for someone else to make the answer for them, but the clock was going to force them to decide sooner rather than later. If they didn’t get back to their workstations shortly, and they were already late as it was, they would all be in trouble.

Tanaka breathed out through his nose. “…I think we should. That is to say, if it is alright with you.”

“In that case,” she said, “At 11 a.m., we should return Koizumi-san’s hairdryer as was requested. Afterwards, we will find Togami-san and request that he meet us at the beach where Monokuma will be waiting. I think we should have just enough time, if that is truly how we wish to proceed.”

“Yes! We got this! That guy is goin’ down!” Souda pumped his fists into the air.

With the decision settled upon, it was time to put the final plan in motion. Before leaving, they checked the list of assignments again to see where Koizumi would be that morning. As she frequently was placed, the photographer had been put on cleaning duty, so if they got to her room fast enough they would be able to catch her before she went to lunch.

“I will be performing a ritual of luck before our meeting later. Until then… I pray our course of action is correct,” Tanaka said.

“Then it is settled,” Sonia said. “Souda-san, we will meet you with the hairdryer immediately outside of Koizumi’s cottage just after 11. Do not be late.”

And with that, they split up, and could only hope dearly that they were not royally screwing themselves over.

 

* * *

 

After a morning filled with anxiety, second-guessing and tortuous monotony, just minutes after 11 a.m., Souda, Sonia, and Tanaka converged upon Koizumi’s cottage where Souda met them with a flashy pink hairdryer in tow. Koizumi had been one of the only individuals they hadn’t made a point investigate more deeply with, considering she had been cleared of suspicion quite early on, but they didn’t put much thought towards it – after all, they had their suspect set in their minds, and they were ready to move onto the next step. This stop was just a bit of a speedbump.

Regardless, it felt like the end was finally in sight. Finally, after hours upon hours of searching and mental fatigue, they could bring their suspect into Monokuma's custody and return a sense of normalcy to their life on the island, though "normal" was not really a word that could be used to describe anything that ever took place on Jabberwock Island.

“Alright! You ready to go turn our guy in after this?” Souda said.

“What a waste of time. We would not even be here if you had just brought that dreaded thing back when you were supposed to,” Tanaka sighed. “Now go on. Hurry up.”

Sonia shoved him forward, and Souda stumbled up to Koizumi’s door to return her item. He gave a few polite knocks and stood back, rocking back and forth on his heels. It took a few seconds, but the door finally creaked open, and there Koizumi appeared in the doorway.

“…Hello?” she greeted, and quickly noticed the hairdryer that Souda was holding in his hands. “…Oh! I was wondering when you’d be bringing this back! I’ve been having to air dry for a few days.”

“Yeah, sorry! Got kinda busy, you know how things are!” Souda said, chuckling nervously.

“Thank you!” she said, grabbing the object away from him and neatly wrapping the tangled cord around its handle. She then turned her attention towards the pair standing behind him. “…And you had to have these two escort you here, for some reason?”

Souda opened his mouth to answer, but Sonia got a response in first in first. “…Yes, we just wanted to make sure he got it back. You, of all people, should know that he cannot be relied on.” Souda frowned at the remark.

“Well, thank you, Sonia-chan. Who knows what these boys would do without us around to help them?” she said, and waved a dismissive hand. “First Souda comes here asking me to wash his clothes _right_ before the party, and then the whole Nidai ordeal happens, and then the next morning Kuzuryuu shows up looking for me to wash one of his suits. I tell you, they’d be helpless without us.”

“Kuzuryuu had you do his laundry too…?” Souda asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, apparently he’d gotten his outfit all wet at the party and he wanted to get the salt water smell out. Whatever, I said. I’ve already been doing you guys favors left and right, so it’s not like I could have said no.”

The gears in Souda’s mind were clicking back into motion. Way back in his head, somewhere within the fog, was something screaming at him to pursue this further. He fidgeted with his collar. “But… I was with Kuzuryuu all night. Him and Hinata, I mean. When did he get all wet…?”

“Don’t ask me. I wasn’t watching him,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Anyways, as long as you’re here, do you have anything else to wash?”

“N-No, I’m good! Really good!” he said, and stumbled back towards his two companions. “Thanks, Koizumi! You’re awesome!”

“...No need to say that, now. Bye!” She closed the door behind her, and Souda immediately spun around and began shoving Sonia and Tanaka back in the direction of Sonia’s cottage. Unsure of what he was doing, they planted their feet firmly into the ground to keep him from pushing them any further.

“What are you doing, Souda-san? I thought we were going to meet with Togami right away,” Sonia asked.

“Didn’t you guys catch that?!” Souda said, waving his arms. “Koizumi had to wash Kuzuryuu’s suit!”

“And what of it?” Tanaka asked.

“No! Don’t you see it?!” Souda said. “Kuzuryuu was hanging around me and Hinata for the whole party, and the kid wouldn’t go anywhere _near_ the water because he didn’t want to get his suit wet! He wouldn’t even stand in our circle of dudes before I left because we were right by the shore! _How could he have gotten his suit wet?!”_

“You don’t suppose… perhaps, as a joke, some of those fiends descended upon him and threw him in the ocean, would they?” Tanaka asked.

“No… that seems like something we would have heard about, though, does it not?” Sonia said. “After all, we did ask everyone what kind of excitement happened while we were gone, and if Kuzuryuu had been thrown into the water for a cheap laugh, it seems like something we would have heard about.”

“But Pekoyama verified his alibi, and vice versa…” he said, and then realized the weakness of that statement. If two people had somehow been working together, then of _course_ they would back each other up. While the two of them didn’t give off the impression that they were very good friends, they did seem to hang out near each other an awful lot, maybe even often enough to have formed some sort of alliance.

The thought was petrifying – did _two_ people know about their activities?

“I knew it! They’re in cahoots, aren’t they?!” Souda exclaimed. “Gyaahh!! Why didn’t we talk to Koizumi sooner?! We coulda had this!”

Sonia shook her head in disbelief. “It cannot be… _Kuzuryuu-san?”_

While the evidence was damning, there was still a part of the story that didn’t make sense. Everyone had been confirmed present when Togami made his head count back at the hotel gates. If he had ducked out of the party early, he couldn’t have possibly been there… or could he have? After all, human testimony was not without error. That, and the other question that remained – what motivation could Kuzuryuu have _possibly_ had to commit such an act? He was the sole person who was the literal, exact opposite of the idea of the suspect they had originally set out to look for. Not clumsy, not heavy, not perverted, not in the circle of boys when Souda left, and certainly not drunk.

Maybe Togami had been right all along, even if he had had a different suspect or two in mind – the three of them had been clinging to the very first idea they had come up with, and stubbornly refused to read the clues from another angle to imagine a different scenario, which in turn caused them to rush through the suspects they had deemed least likely to be at fault. They needed to let go of their preconceived notions.

“We should just go ask him about it one more time! C’mon, we got a few minutes left, right?” Souda pleaded.

“As much as I am loathe to change our answer at the last minute, and I still have my suspicions against Togami…” Tanaka crossed his arms. “I feel it would be beneficial to speak with him, just to be sure.”

“Then… I suppose if you insist, we can try him again,” Sonia said, and looked towards the entrance to the hotel. “But we’ll need to track him down before he arrives at the restaurant. He should not be far.”

Unlike Togami, Kuzuryuu was one of the stragglers who didn’t really give much effort to arriving to lunch on time. The last thing he wanted was to spend even more time in an enclosed space with all his loud, obnoxious classmates, and as such he tried to make his meal experiences as short as possible. This gave them the potential to single him out on his way in if they were going to ask him a few delicate questions.

They stood back near Sonia’s cottage, waiting patiently as they watched every other student file in through the hotel gates one at a time. Soon, the arrivals began to slow. Just as they were beginning to get impatient, there he was – Mr. Innocent himself, the exact black-suited individual they were looking for, dragging his feet along at the end of the line. He hadn’t even bothered to look to his right to see who was coming.

“ _HEY!!”_ Souda barked, and Kuzuryuu jumped like a scared cat, immediately spinning towards them with widened eyes.

“Wha…!” he stammered, fixing his tie. “...What the hell’s wrong with you? Can’t you greet people like a normal person?”

The three of them approached him calmly but calculatedly, with Souda leading the way with his hands buried deep in his pockets, giving off the impression of a group of thugs ganging up on a poor soul to steal his lunch money. Kuzuryuu took a few defensive steps back, having seen _far_ too many gangster movies to be falling for this kind of trap, and bristled at their arrival.

“Say, Kuzuryuu…” Souda said, narrowing his eyes. “…We got a few things to ask ya.”

He wrinkled his nose up at them, donning a look of intense agitation that was even more hostile than usual. “Fuck off. I’m not interested.”

“It is but a few simple questions, Kuzuryuu-san. We will let you go when you are done,” Sonia said. “We do not intend to cause trouble.”

“I don’t care about your questions. Can I go now?” he said. He made a sidestepping motion in an attempt to leave, but was blocked by Tanaka’s outstretched arm. “…Wha-?!”

“…How interesting. You suddenly appear to be in a hurry to proceed to lunch. Is this a new development in your character?” Tanaka asked. He towered over the other boy, staring down at him intimidatingly from above and positioning his body to prevent his escape.

“I’m… I’m not! I just don’t wanna talk to you assholes!”

“You don’t? For what _reason?”_ Tanaka’s tone grew threatening.

“I shouldn’t even have to explain myself!” he said, continuing to look for an escape path as the three of them circled around him like a pack of starving wolves. He face began to redden. “You guys are just coming up and confronting me and accusing me of some shit I didn’t do! Lemme leave!”

“Kuzuryuu-san… no one said anything about accusing you of anything,” Sonia said.

His response was delayed. “I… I-I…You know, the thing you were asking me about earlier! I already told you I don’t know anything about it! Now get the fuck outta my road!” He lurched forward again in an attempt to leave, which Tanaka intercepted. Kuzuryuu only grew more frustrated.

“No, we’re not necessarily talking about the _necklace,_ this time,” Sonia said. “Actually, we overheard from a friend of ours that you had gotten a pinstripe suit of yours somewhat wet at the party. Do you mind if we ask what had happened?”

“Th…The fuck do you care? Why are you guys concerned about my laundry?!”

“We just thought it was weird and all, y’know… considering you spent the whole party trying not to get it _wet_ ,” Souda said accusingly. “What’d we miss?”

Kuzuryuu’s eye seemed to twitch. He stepped backwards, halting his attempts to get past Tanaka. “I… I fell in, you jackass. I tripped. Alright?”

“You tripped?” he asked incredulously. “From 20 feet away, and you somehow fell in the water?”

“No!” He gritted his teeth. “I was right next to it, you fucking idiot!”

“And no one saw it happen?”

He took a long, drawn-out breath through his nose. “…No. How would _you_ know? Did you fuckin’ _ask?”_

The thing was – they _did_ ask. They’d just spent the greater portion of 24 hours grilling every soul on the island as to what happened at the party after they had left. If Kuzuryuu had somehow tripped into the water and gotten himself soaking wet, it would be safe to assume that someone should have at least mentioned his resulting rage. Souda bobbed his head slightly. “Yeah… we might’ve.”

“Th-That…that doesn't prove anything!” he spat. "It happened after you left! What's your point?!"

Kuzuryuu’s breathing accelerated as the three of them stared him down. While they couldn’t immediately disprove his claim, his behavior felt all wrong. The way he paused, the vagueness of his story… it all wasn’t right. If he hadn’t been at the party for the end of it, they needed something to prove it, and fast.

However, Tanaka, in a bout of quick-thinking, came up with the perfect question to test his innocence, and one that couldn’t be answered by anyone else now that they had the boy isolated.

“Kuzuryuu... grant me your insight, and riddle me this…” Tanaka began, lifting his chest confidently. “If the incident occurred at the party, and you were truly there until its grand conclusion… _who won the drinking contest_?”

His answer took a few seconds too long.

“Th-that’s…” he stammered, tugging at his necktie. “I-I wasn’t paying attention...I wasn’t even drinking with them… why the fuck do you even care?!”

That was their dagger. There was no way that Kuzuryuu couldn’t have known who won. According to Hinata, Nidai had loudly bellowed out his victory roar for all to hear, an impossible event to simply ignore if one had been anywhere even remotely close by. Unlike the three of them, Kuzuryuu hadn’t cared to go around asking everyone what happened that night, so of course he wouldn’t know. The only explanation that remained – _he wasn’t there._

Kuzuryuu’s face went crimson.

“…It _was_ you, wasn’t it?!” Souda exclaimed, jerking forward with his teeth bared. “You asshole!! I _knew_ it! What the _fuck?!”_

Kuzuryuu’s fidgeting grew more intense, his face reddened not out of anger anymore, but out of embarrassment. “I…I-I didn’t…”

“Kuzuryuu-san…” Sonia said, her voice like steel. “…You saw something you shouldn’t have on the night of the party, didn’t you?”

“Th-That’s…” His breathing picked up rapidly. “N-No, I wasn’t… I didn’t mean–“

“How much did you witness?!” Tanaka demanded. Their circle around him tightened.

“L-Let me explain myself! I-It was an accident, I didn’t know–!

“ _HOW MUCH_ did you witness?!”

Kuzuryuu staggered backwards, unable to even look them in the eyes while he fumbled to find the words to explain himself. His eyes darted around, scouting for a path to get away as there was no one around to step in and save him, but Tanaka was going to force an answer out of him whether he liked it or not. He tugged at his tie.

“I-I saw…” he started, drawing his lip back in a grimace. “Ugh… I saw _enough_ , that’s for fuckin’ sure. Well, just… _that…_ goin’ on… between, er…” He made some sort of wavy hand gesture towards Souda and Tanaka, whose horrified expressions told the rest of the story. Souda crouched down, yanking his hat down over his face to muffle a scream as he assumed the fetal position, while Tanaka’s own haughty façade began to crumble and all he could do was pull his scarf up to hide his scarlet features. Kuzuryuu exhaled, putting a hand up to cover his own face. “…All I can say is, Tanaka, you better keep that damn mouth away from me.”

“I-I was… possessed…! Certainly, the work of an incubus which imbued its will into my consciousness!”

While the other two struggled to piece themselves back together, Sonia could only bring a hand up to her chin, the creases in her forehead deepening with dismay as she attempted to place his motive. The disappointment in her voice was apparent. “Kuzuryuu-san, I did not picture you to be the type to engage in such predatory behavior, but… it seems we have learned a few things today.”

“H-Hold on a sec!” he interrupted. “It’s not what you think! I-I can expl–”

“No way!” Souda cut him off, shooting back up from his crouched position. “We don’t have time for this now! It’s almost _half past eleven!_ We gotta get this kid to Monokuma, ASAP!”

Kuzuryuu halted his pleas, now more bewildered than anything. “…Huh?! What’s Monokuma got to do with this?!”

“I-It doesn’t matter! You just gotta come with us!”

“What?! _Why?!”_

There’d be no easy way to explain to him what they were going to have Monokuma do to him without eliciting some sort of extreme negative reaction. He scratched his forehead. “Well… if we tell ya, then you’re _really_ not gonna wanna go, so–“

“…Are you kidding me?! Then _hell_ no!!” he shouted, the anger returning to his face. “No way… I know what this is! You guys are tryin’ to _silence_ me, aren’t you?! I ain’t falling for this shit!”

It should have been assumed that someone from his background would jump to that conclusion first. Sonia stepped in to try and calm him down, but it seemed as though the fuse had already been lit. “Kuzuryuu-san, wait! We do not intend to cause harm! We only–”

“– _Fuck_ no!! I ain’t coming!!”

In the brief moment that they had dropped their guards, Kuzuryuu bolted, slipping through their attempts to grab him and racing back to his cottage as fast as his legs could take him. Souda and Tanaka immediately jumped into action and broke into a wild sprint to catch him.

“NO!! _GET BACK HERE!!”_ Souda hollered, their feet pounding against the wooden boards as they ran after him, but their target was not about to turn around. Kuzuryuu went barreling around the corner to his front step and scrambled into his room, slamming the door behind him and deadbolting it from inside. Souda arrived not but a second later and screeched to a halt in front of his door, with Tanaka hot on his heels, delayed only by the cumbersomeness of his outfit. The mechanic clasped both hands around the doorknob and rattled it madly.

“He’s locked it…?” Tanaka asked.

“Get out of there!!” Souda yelled, ignoring the others as Sonia jogged up behind them. “You can’t stay in there forever!!”

They heard a muffled voice coming from the window as a pair of golden yellow eyes peeped through the shades. “Watch me!”

“I’m serious!! We _need_ you!!”

“Fuck off!!”

Kuzuryuu snapped the blinds closed and refused to acknowledge them further despite their continued harassment, leaving the three of them in the dark without a culprit to turn in. Souda continued jerking the door handle, placing a foot flat against the wall for leverage, but no amount of force was going to get them into his room. He finally broke away, growling in fury, and began pacing around in a circle near Sonia and Tanaka.

“…AAAAGGHHHH!! We don’t have _time_ for this!!”

“I would have expected Kuzuryuu-san to be difficult, but not like this,” Sonia said, and nervously eyed the window of his cottage. One could sense the princess’s unease. “But... as the Super High School Level Yakuza, he must have connections to some very powerful people…! Who’s to say what would happen if my secret got to those types of authorities? We cannot let him get away!”

Of all the people to have seen them in the act, Kuzuryuu was by far the worst option for that very reason. In his line of business, he could sell their secret off to any number of shady individuals, use it for blackmail, or even worse. Their difficulty in finding the suspect all made sense now - of _course_ the yakuza would be the best at keeping a dark secret. Not only that, but in their current position, they had no idea if Pekoyama was in on it too, but seeing as she had supported his claim of being at the party until the very end, it would be easy to assume she was aware. They now needed to work fast to fix their problem from the source before the information could begin spreading like some kind of terrible virus.

They hadn’t even gotten the chance to hear his side of the story yet.

“That bastard!” Souda yelled, clutching his beanie. “This wasn’t supposed to happen! He’s totally cheating!”

“We cannot afford to give up now. Not when we’ve come this far.” Tanaka shook his head.

“Then what are we gonna do?! We have a half-hour left!”

Their time was running out. With Kuzuryuu holed up in his room indefinitely, there was no way they would be able to drag him to the beach by normal means, and Monokuma was not going to be sympathetic to their plight. This meant they would need to get creative.

“Well then…” Sonia said, her eyes seeming to light up with an idea. “Let us make a short journey to Rocketpunch Market. We will just have to coax him out with a bit of gentle persuasion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "gentle"


	8. Gentle Persuasion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally intended this to be part of the last chapter but split it up to prevent it from being overly long. The last part is almost finished though after an inexcusable wait!

“…Are they gone?”

Kuzuryuu’s eyes peeped through his closed blinds. On the other side of the wall, the commotion had abruptly disappeared – the verbal harassment had ceased and his door was no longer being furiously pounded on, finally allowing him a brief respite from the chaos. For the time being, it appeared that his pursuers had given up and gone off to lunch.

He breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed a bag of chips from the massive pile of snacks on his desk. Having to skip lunch didn’t bother him one bit – even if he decided to never leave his room again, he had enough junk food set aside to last a few (very unhealthy) days in his cottage. It wasn’t like he was missing anything by not being there, and no one would miss him if he was gone.

However, there was _one_ person who might notice his absence, the reminder of which was gnawing at him from the back of his mind – as a person who didn’t take his safety lightly, he hoped that this particular girl wasn’t too concerned by his unexpected disappearance. There would likely be some explaining to do whenever he got the chance to exit his room again. As hostile as Souda, Sonia, and Tanaka had been, it’d be wise to employ some form of extra protection for a few days while they had the chance to cool off and reconsider their actions. It was obvious to him that they were going to be mad, and that was the reaction he had prepared for, but he hadn’t expected them to come seeking revenge for what he’d seen.

He collapsed into his chair and threw a chip in his mouth. “…Tch! See if I ever try to do something helpful for these assholes again.”

A few uneventful minutes passed as he sat in his darkened room, slowly working through the bag of snacks in his hand. He considered just skipping the afternoon work session that day. Sure, Monokuma would be upset with him, but it had to be a better alternative than what awaited him at the hands of the other three. His cottage was the only safe haven on the island, after all.

Or so he thought, because his fifteen minutes of peace were about to come to an end.

A huge * _BANG*_ arrived at his door with enough force to rattle his entire bedroom. Kuzuryuu jolted, caught completely unaware by the sudden noise, nearly falling out of his seat in the process. He swung his head towards the source of the disturbance, which had sounded like something colliding against his door with great force.

“W-What the-?!” he stammered, leaping out of his chair to run towards the window. He muttered a prayer under his breath that his pursuers hadn’t come back already – surely, they couldn’t be that desperate. He brushed the shades aside to peer out the glass only to find his worst fear confirmed.

There, just outside of his front entryway, were Souda and Tanaka with their arms locked together, backing up like a bull about to charge, and immediately behind them was Sonia with the Four Dark Gods of Destruction perched safely on her shoulders and a distinctive, opaque Rocketpunch Market bag hanging down at her side. It was clearly weighted down with something, but from his window, he couldn’t tell what.

The two boys angled their shoulders forward and rushed at the door once more, and another earth-shattering _*BANG*_ rattled his entire cottage upon impact. The door itself seemed to almost bulge inward with the blow, while a picture frame on the wall wobbled precariously nearby. Kuzuryuu quickly put a hand against it to keep it from falling.

He threw the window open. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“We’re breakin’ this door down!” Souda answered.

“You’re doing _what?!”_ he shouted. “You can’t break down someone’s door!!”

“Mioda’s done it before! We’re coming in there whether you like it or not!”

“...No you’re not! Why are you making this such a big deal?!”

“Kuzuryuu-san!” Sonia called out from behind them, stationed in the apparent position of commander. She drew up her most authoritative voice to speak to him, holding up a palm to deliver her order. “I am going to have to ask you to surrender peacefully, or we will have no choice but to make this difficult!”

He wrinkled up his nose. “No! Go away!”

Kuzuryuu snapped the shades shut and retreated back into the confines of his room. Sonia simply gave a shrug, and listened in as more sounds started coming from his room. Moments later, the scrape of a heavy object being dragged along his wood floor could be heard from within, stopping directly in front of his door where it arrived with a soft * _clunk*_.

Tanaka gasped. “…He’s barricading the entrance! Hurry!”

Souda gave a nod, and the two of them again locked themselves together for another shot at his door. They charged forward, slamming into the hard surface with another violent impact, and succeeded only in generating a whole lot of noise.  They staggered backwards after their next failed attempt and bent down with their hands at their knees, panting in exhaustion.

Souda fell back. “…Gyaaaah!! I’m gonna get a concussion doin’ this! Ain’t there some other way we can get him outta there?!”

“His fortress is impenetrable…! The magical barrier he has erected is even more powerful than those of my own creation!”

Sonia scanned their surroundings, looking for some other way they could get into his cottage before the boys could injure themselves. Just then, an idea rushed to her head. “Wait… look!” she said softly, approaching Souda and Tanaka from behind. She pointed a finger to the narrow wooden beam that connected the front walkway to the back porch, the very same feature that Souda had used to enter Sonia’s cottage in their explicit encounter and the one that Kuzuryuu had evidently fallen off of at the scene of the crime. His own tactic could be used against him.

Souda straightened himself out. “Alright, I got this. Watch me!”

“I shall continue as a distraction, in that case,” Tanaka whispered, and yanked Souda back by the collar to deliver a few extra words of instruction into his ear before pushing him away. Souda stepped onto the hazardous ledge and began shimmying around the corner, careful not to lose his own footing in the process. While he worked his way to the back, Tanaka continued at the front, and Sonia backed up to allow him some space as he threw himself against the door to generate more unnecessary noise. If they were lucky, Kuzuryuu’s attention would remain diverted to the main entrance.

Souda quickly moved around the thin ledge with his back to the wall, listening in as furniture continued to be shifted around near the front to counter Tanaka’s relentless onslaught. As he had done before, he leapt over the railing upon reaching the back and put a hand on the latch to give it a test pull. To his great satisfaction, and Kuzuryuu’s personal suffering – the back door was completely unlocked.

He shoved the sliding door wide open, stepping into the yakuza’s room with a triumphant cry of “HAH!” and a wide, malicious grin stretched across his face. Kuzuryuu immediately whirled around at the source of the noise, gritting his teeth in horror upon seeing the intruder in his bedroom.

“W-What the..?!” he exclaimed. “You can’t… you can’t just do that!! You can’t come in the back door, you asshole! Get outta here!”

“It’s too late!” Souda yelled, his grin widening. “If you’re gonna play dirty, then so are we!”

Kuzuryuu’s head swiveled around his room in search of some form of self-protection, and Souda acted similarly, looking instead for something to distract his target with to enact the plan that Tanaka had whispered to him before he left. His eyes settled on one of the white pillows resting on Kuzuryuu’s bed, while Kuzuryuu’s fell on one of the glass saké bottles sitting on his counter, and both of them leapt in opposite directions toward their item of choice. Souda yanked the pillow off of his bed and turned around to face his opponent while Kuzuryuu spun around brandishing the bottle in one of his hands, with a viciousness to him that was not quite like the “choir boy” Souda had described him as earlier.

“These things can hurt coming down on your head, you know!” Kuzuryuu tossed the bottle between his hands threateningly. “If you touch me, kid, I swear to god…!”

Souda nearly jumped upon seeing the object in the other’s grasp. “H-Hey now!” he stammered, taking a few hesitant steps backwards and holding his own item up like a shield. “…This wasn’t supposed to get actually violent! C’mon dude! This ain’t even fair!”

“…I’m not the one who grabbed a fuckin’ pillow! If you’re gonna break into my cottage looking for a fight, then a fight’s what you’re gonna get! We’re _makin’_ this violent!”

Kuzuryuu lunged forward with the glass bottle held above his head and Souda screamed, dodging out of the way just in time as the object was brought down right where he was standing. He reeled back, gripping one corner of his pillow with both hands like a club as Kuzuryuu made a second attempt to strike him. This time however, Souda, with closed eyes, took a wild swing with the pillow using all of his strength and managed to land a direct hit upon Kuzuryuu’s weapon hand right as it was coming down. They watched as the bottle went flying out of his grasp and hit the floor nearby, shattering immediately upon impact and sending the glass shards spilling out beneath his bed.

Kuzuryuu’s confidence shattered in that same instant. “Ghk...!”

“…Hah!” Souda exclaimed, his wicked grin returning, sliding the pillowcase off of the pillow and slinging the heavier part to the side. “Now you’re gonna get it, you little _punk!_ This is for ruining my night with _SONIA-SAAAN!!”_

This time, Souda was the one to dive forward with the pillowcase stretched between his knuckles and seized Kuzuryuu by the wrists. Unfortunately, his opponent wasn’t going to give up without a fight. A brief scuffle broke out as the two wrestled with one another, kicking and flailing in desperation, each of them trying to find an opening to exploit the other’s weakness. Somehow, in the heat of the action, Souda got just the opening he needed after delivering Kuzuryuu a swift knee to the abdomen, causing him to nearly double back in pain, and quickly slipped the pillowcase over the his head to obstruct his vision.

The diversion worked for all of two seconds. Kuzuryuu bent down and whipped it off of himself moments later, turning towards Souda, who was leaning against the dresser near the back of his room with an arrogant smile plastered on his face.

“…How did you seriously think that was gonna work?!” he snarled, but little had he realized, the distraction had allowed just enough time for Souda to kick the chair away from Kuzuryuu’s door and click the lock open.

With another loud * _BANG*_ ,Tanaka came barreling through the front door like a black storm, wrapping his arms around Kuzuryuu’s waist and tackling him to the floor in a single powerful motion. Kuzuryuu let out a sharp grunt at the force of the impact as he was leveled to the ground, now lying completely at the mercy of Tanaka, whose weight was pinning him down. Souda crawled forward and grabbed his ankles to hold his legs in place while Tanaka kneeled on top of him and wrenched his arms backwards.

“We’ve captured the fiend! Quickly, prepare the bindings!”

Kuzuryuu thrashed violently from under him, struggling to breathe beneath the larger man. “…W-What the f- _fuck_ is going on?! Get _off!!”_

Upon Tanaka’s signal, Sonia ran up behind them through the open door and immediately spilled the contents of the Rocketpunch Market bag all over the floor, sending a pair of thick ropes and a spool of duct tape rolling their way. The hamsters leapt off her shoulders and scurried back into Tanaka’s scarf. Each of the three grabbed a different item and began unravelling, wearing looks of unrelenting determination with their single goal in mind. Kuzuryuu’s pupils constricted in horror upon seeing what they had in store for him, his voice now rising in fear rather than anger.

“…H-Hey!! This ain’t funny anymore! I surrender! Let me _go!!”_ They ignored his pleas, instead beginning to tie the rope around his limbs. Powerless under their control, he stretched his head back and attempted to bite at Tanaka, who responded by putting an elbow over his neck to hold him in place.

“I am sorry it had to come to this, Kuzuryuu-san, but it is for the best!” Sonia said, wrapping the bindings around his ankles as Souda held him steady.

“I-I’m serious!! Don’t do this to me!! _HEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPP–!!”_ he hollered, before a piece of duct tape was slapped over his mouth by a bandaged hand.

“Silence. It will all be over with soon,” Tanaka said, holding his palm over Kuzuryuu’s face. His thrashing only grew more desperate, now unable to speak and fully convinced the other students were going to be finding his body sometime within the next 24 hours.

“!!!!!!”

With the bindings in place and their captive subdued, the three of them shot to their feet with Kuzuryuu left immobilized. His chin rested awkwardly on the wooden floor, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he breathed through his nose, shooting his assailants a vicious glare to end all glares.

Tanaka turned towards the clock near his bedside. “Ten to the hour. We cannot afford to waste another moment!”

“To the beach!” Sonia proclaimed. “Monokuma, here we come!”

Kuzuryuu let out a muffled groan as they flipped him onto his back. To their great fortune, the person who happened to witness them in the bedroom was also one of the lightest people on the island. Tanaka hooked his arms under his shoulders to lift him up by the front while Souda hoisted him up by his feet, holding him just above waist height. They would need to work fast if they were to avoid being seen by the others, since if their other activities up until this point didn’t arouse any suspicion, this activity _definitely_ would.

Sonia stepped outside to make sure the coast was clear, then motioned for the boys to follow with Kuzuryuu in tow. They stepped into the sunlight, where Sonia shepherded them over to the hotel gates, moving them along at a fast trot as they huffed along with their load. As they arrived at the exit, Tanaka’s hamsters chittered madly in his scarf for an undiscernible reason, but once at the doors, they came to a full stop to readjust themselves. The two shifted their grip on the unfortunate captive in their possession, his body completely rigid in protest, causing him to grunt in response to their less-than-delicate handling. Kuzuryuu’s face was red in absolute, unbridled fury.

Souda panted, already worn out from their short trek. He held up Kuzuryuu’s legs like a wheelbarrow. “…Talk about dead weight! Man, I’m sure glad we got you and not–”

The thought was interrupted when a small, dark object went whizzing past his ear. Sonia and Tanaka froze, staring behind Souda with eyes wide and mouths agape, who reached a hand up to find his hat gone and a few strands of pink hair drifting lazily to the ground. To his right, the black beanie he was previously wearing was pinned to the hotel gate with a single, well-aimed throwing star. With the color disappearing from his face, he slowly rotated in the direction of the pool deck, where the others’ eyes were fixed on a figure in the distance – a figure that was rapidly growing larger in their vision. A tiny whimper escaped his lips as he realized what it was.

Barreling towards them like a wild tiger was Peko Pekoyama, sporting a look of unparalleled fury in her eyes unlike anything they’d ever seen, with a very large, very _real_ katana gleaming high over her shoulder, making her intentions clear as day – she was going to spill some blood.

_“…RUUUUN!!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bonus round 3](https://36.media.tumblr.com/de342e8c481bc608d985237ef08d9fa4/tumblr_npcqf34Pxp1sse7aho1_540.png)


	9. The Deadline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, the end is FINALLY HERE, but if it counts for anything this is the longest one yet and damn is it a doozy

If there was one individual on the island that a person didn’t want to get on the bad side of, it was the Super High School Level Swordswoman, and with Kuzuryuu tied up in their possession, the girl was now flying towards them at speeds that threatened to break the sound barrier.

_“…RUUUUN!!”_

Souda let out a blood-curdling screech as they hurriedly readjusted their grip a second time, tripping over their own feet as they scrambled to get out of her path. Sonia rushed in, pushing Souda out of her way, and hiked up Kuzuryuu’s midsection to ramp up their speed. Their captive growled bitterly at the rough handling, fighting against their grip as he was bobbled along in their arms, but upon craning his head up to see what was going on, a discernible choking sound could be heard through his sealed mouth.

There was no time to try and negotiate with the girl. Without looking back, they launched themselves off the soft gravel, veering onto the main road and accelerating into an uncoordinated sprint with their assassin in hot pursuit.

“By what means have we unleashed this true form?! Her very aura is dripping with unfettered rage!” Tanaka huffed. “The she-devil bellows for a sacrifice…!”

Even with their combined effort, they were no match for Pekoyama, who was tearing after them like a predator after its prey. None of the three had come prepared to handle a chase. They went stumbling down the road at breakneck speed with Kuzuryuu in their arms, none of them daring to turn around, with his weight threatening to slip out of their grip at any moment and the sound of Pekoyama’s furious footsteps growing louder in their ears with every second.

“What the hell?! I didn’t think they were seriously working together! I didn’t sign up for this!!” Souda yelled, the tears already streaming down his face. “At least I’m not dying a virgin!!”

“As a technicality, the descriptor still applies, unless you would like to consider my actions upon you enough to break the curse!”

“…I-I take it back! We’re erasing that from my record! I _am_ dying a virgin!”

“Please stop!” Sonia begged. “She’s right behind us!”

Pekoyama was right on their tail and the gap was narrowing fast. With her sword raised even higher, she was poised to take out the person holding up the rear, who happened to be Souda and whose legs were already moving as fast as he could physically take them.

He shrieked. “Ahh! We gotta drop ‘im! She’s seriously gonna kill us!!”

“Over my lifeless corpse! We are _NOT_ surrendering here! Not when the end is in our reach!” Tanaka roared.

“What shall we do?!” Sonia gasped as she ran out of breath, her heels clacking rapidly against the uneven road. “We cannot hold her off for much longer!”

“We may be able to hold her off for just long enough…” he said, and cast a glance over his shoulder. “For I, the great Gundam Tanaka, possess the fiend’s only weakness!”

“What?!”

Tanaka left his share of the weight to Sonia for only a second, whirling around to face their pursuer who was only a few strides away. He locked eyes with Pekoyama, his cloak billowing around him dramatically as he spun, and raised his hands to signal his strike. Just as she was bearing down on him, Tanaka – with a resounding bellow, and in a scene that could have been taken straight out of a shonen anime – called out his ridiculous attack for all to hear.

_“SKYLINE LAMENTATION ART OF THE DEMON RODENT!!”_

The Four Dark Gods of Destruction went flying out of his scarf a second later, descending upon Pekoyama, who immediately put the brakes on her pursuit and brought her hands up to her face to defend herself. The rabid assault cut off her vision entirely. She dropped to her knees, the sword clattering to the ground nearby, as the hamsters did what they did best – smothered her in fluff.

Upon confirming the success of his maneuver, Tanaka rejoined with the others and matched back up with their pace. “Their effect will only be temporary! Move!”

The distraction would give them a few extra seconds at best. They went careening past the ranch, sending out a spray of gravel as they slipped down the road, their finish line now in plain sight. The beautiful, pristine beach arrived in front of them with the promise of freedom from their plight and an end to their furious chase. That is, as long as Pekoyama didn’t catch them first.

It didn’t take long for her to get back in motion. From far behind, she leapt to her feet – but not before carefully herding the hamsters off of herself – and swiftly grabbed the weapon that had dropped to her side with her teeth clenched in frustration at the stunt she should have seen coming from miles away. With a forceful push, she took off after Kuzuryuu’s kidnappers a second time. Her long strides would make up for the lost yardage in no time.

Souda looked behind himself as the dirt beneath his feet began turning to sand. High-pitched and hoarse, his voice could have been mistaken for a dying animal. “Sh-Shit! She’s coming!!”

They needed to get their main objective out of the way before their other problem could be dealt with. In their mad sprint onto the beach, they spun their heads around for Monokuma, who had agreed to meet them at noon to deliver on his promise. However, with the strain of their load paired with the assassin at their heels, there was no time to waste looking for him. If they didn’t release Kuzuryuu soon, there would certainly be casualties.

The sand slowed down their progress as their heels dug into the soft terrain, the sweat pouring off their foreheads in the fierce midday heat. Pekoyama arrived at the scene moments later, the change in surface texture having almost no effect on her, and skimmed across the beach almost effortlessly as she closed in on them with unrelenting speed. The glint of the sword catching the corners of their eyes signaled she was already closer than they expected. With the threat of sure death imminent, it was time to put a stop to their chase before it was too late, and since Monokuma hadn’t stated a specific location on the beach in their agreement, they could technically abandon their suspect at any time.

“This should be far enough!” Sonia shouted. “Drop him!!”

All three of them immediately released their grip on Kuzuryuu, plunging him into the sand with a muted grunt of agony. They spun around to face Pekoyama, but instead of stopping as they had expected, she was bearing down on them harder than ever.

As they stumbled away from her, Souda’s foot caught against Kuzuryuu, sending him spilling onto his back and flinching as he hit the ground. Pekoyama was now mere yards away. He craned his head up, squinting in the sunlight, only to discover to his horror that she was making a beeline straight towards him. In his panic, he could only find the strength to crawl away on his back as she moved in on him, kicking his legs out to propel himself in the opposite direction.

“A-Alright! Alright! He’s yours!!” Souda shrieked, his eyes wide in terror, but Pekoyama had locked onto her target and was not about to back down.

“Pekoyama-san! Please stop!!” Sonia shouted frantically. “We do not intend harm!”

The pleading fell on deaf ears as she took a few more aggressive strides towards Souda, the bloodthirst visible in her crimson eyes.

“C-Cease this senseless violence!” Tanaka sputtered, holding out his arms behind Souda in an attempt to halt her attack. “We are finished–!!”

The sword glittered at the peak of her swing.

 _“PEKOYAMA…!!”_ Sonia and Tanaka shouted in unison, though Souda had become frozen in terror, and could not even utter a response to his assailant as he feebly crawled away. Pekoyama was going to make him pay.

Without a word, she swung her weapon down, the trajectory headed right at Souda’s throat, and all that could be heard was his ear-piercing screech ringing out across the beach before–

_“ENOUGH!!”_

The blade halted under his chin. The four of them instantly froze as the familiar voice hit their ears, turning their eyes towards the source of the noise. Tanaka had his arms up behind Souda, his fingers splayed as he attempted to back away at the last second, while Sonia stood pale-faced on his other side with her hands pressed over her mouth, and Kuzuryuu rested on the ground nearby with his head tilted up at Pekoyama in the midst of her swing. ‘Like a renaissance painting’ would have been an apt description of their bizarre arrangement.

“What do you bastards think you’re doing?!” Monokuma plodded over to where they were standing, examining the absurd gathering in front of him. A small burlap sack, weighted down with what appeared to be a number of rectangular objects, was being dragged behind him. “This is island mode, for goodness sake! My productivity’s gonna go down if you guys start running around bumping each other off before I’m ready!”

Pekoyama glared down at Souda, pressing the blade into his neck once more for good measure, before reluctantly drawing it away. With a few grateful, gasping breaths, he collapsed onto his back with a soft puff of sand.

“Wow…” Sonia combed her frazzled hair back behind her ear. “I thought we were about to witness an actual Japanese-style beheading! An interesting cultural experience, that would have been…” she said quietly, just audible enough for Souda to overhear and loudly protest _‘A CULTURAL EXPERIENCE?!’_ from down below.

“Anyways, welcome, welcome!” Monokuma greeted, tossing his bag off to the side, but the response he received was less than enthusiastic. “Hey now, what’s with those sorry faces? Aren’t you happy to see me? You made it! And with minutes to spare, I might add!”

Pekoyama plunged her weapon into the sand. With a few furious strides, she advanced upon Monokuma, breathing heavily as she confronted him about the scene.

“What is going on here?!”

“Upupu!” he teased. “Miss Pekoyama, the mama bear herself, coming to the defense of Kuzuryuu in his time of need! How very cool! Was it his cry for help that sent you running?”

Monokuma was going to offer no assistance. Instead, she snapped her attention back to the other three, who had locked up in dread upon meeting her violent gaze. Her voice had a searing ferocity to it they had never heard from her before. She gestured aggressively towards Kuzuryuu, who was writhing around on the ground in an attempt to undo his bindings. “…What’s the meaning of this?”

Tanaka’s jaw clenched. Only Sonia could muster the strength to answer right away, skirting carefully around the delicate subject to find an explanation for her. “I-I… I must offer our sincerest apologies for the disturbance, but…” she began, averting her eyes from Pekoyama’s, “…due to an unfortunate circumstance, we had no choice but to bring Kuzuryuu-san here at noon to satisfy an agreement. The original intent was not to cause harm, but…”

“…Mr. Kuzuryuu wasn’t exactly being cooperative, now, was he?” Monokuma said, cocking his head to the side. “Yes, you see, on the night of the party, our little friend here was prowling around where he shouldn’t have been, and accidentally stumbled across a scene that no human should have ever laid eyes upon! And to have word of such a terrible discovery leaked out into the open would have _surely_ cast these three into a world of eternal shame, humiliation, and utter despair! Therefore, in their desperation, I made them an offer to deal with their witness, and once they were able to figure out who the guilty party was, they brought him here to–”

“–to _silence_ him?” Pekoyama interjected, taking a step back towards her katana and wrapping her fingers around the handle. “Is that what this is? You agreed to the permanent removal of the only witness?”

“No, of course not! Is that all you kids think about on this damn island?” Monokuma said hotly. “I told them I’d erase his memory of the scene!”

The intense aura surrounding Pekoyama seemed to waver. As her fingers slipped from the hilt of her sword, she sent a look of bewilderment back to Kuzuryuu, who had stopped his struggling for a moment and lifted his head up with a short, muffled grunt of “?!?!?”.

She lifted her posture, turning her head towards Sonia. “What did he witness?”

“Y-You…” Sonia muttered. “…You do not know?”

“…No, he wouldn’t tell me! I don’t have any idea!” She shook her head, the softness beginning to return to her voice. Her attention was then brought back to Kuzuryuu, who had cleared his throat from beneath the duct tape. “Th-That is, I was only concerned for him as a fellow classmate of ours, and he was acting rather strange about something a few nights ago… though I thought for certain that you were up to no good when I saw you carrying him away like that without bothering to tell anyone else.”

“I think that was a little more than ‘concerned’, ya think?” Souda said, rubbing the front of his neck.

At the request of Kuzuryuu’s potent glare aimed up at her, she ignored his comment and continued. “I had a suspicion that something had occurred to him at the party, concerning his behavior immediately following the event, but… what happened? And what does it have to do with you three? What could have _possibly_ been such a terrible thing to witness?”

Tanaka exhaled, turning away from her with a pair of fingers pressed up to his temple and the creases deepening in his forehead, while Souda, who was still sitting on the ground, looked up at Sonia to gauge her response. He waved a hand across his face.

“Th-That’s…” she said, her voice faltering, “I-I would… rather not…”

“–Why don’t we see what Kuzuryuu-kun has to say, instead?” Monokuma said. “While I had a grand ol’ time watching you tie him up, I guess we can’t leave him like that forever! Let him go, boys!”

Souda and Tanaka were slow to move, but Monokuma didn’t waste a second and came up behind them to push them over to their captive. The harsh red tint on the gangster’s cheeks continued to linger around, though now it was due to a mixture of reasons: the first reason being that he was still royally pissed, and the second being that he was now purely mortified at the prospect of bringing up _that_ subject in front of Pekoyama. With that in mind, the two boys knelt down, working quickly to undo the bindings that they had put in place, and due to Pekoyama’s eyes on the back of their heads signaling her intent to punish them if they made a wrong move, they made sure to be _extra_ gentle this time around.

As the tape was ripped off and the bindings slipped away, Kuzuryuu unleashed a flurry of expletives and gave the two boys a forceful elbow to get their hands off him, and shot to his feet without a second of delay. They backed off, giving him some space to cool down from the situation in fear of his immediate wrath, but instead of receiving the rest of the tongue-lashing they expected, Kuzuryuu began storming towards Monokuma donning an expression similar to Pekoyama when she had done the same earlier.

“This was _your_ idea? Are you fucking _kidding me?!”_ he growled at the bear, patting the sand off his suit. “You had these guys put me through all that bullshit so you _could erase my memory?!”_

“Upupu! I wouldn’t say it was entirely my idea, specifically the kidnapping part, but I did give them sort of a nudge in the right direction, if that’s what you mean! A big nudge!” he said, pointing a paw at the burlap sack that was resting a few yards away. The other three had a feeling they knew what was inside. “If they had failed the conditions I laid out for them, they would have been receiving a _very_ special punishment over at the theater, and everyone would have been invited over to watch it happen! Interesting what a little motive will do to people, isn’t it?”

“We had a time limit, if it makes a difference…” Souda mumbled, but his comment seemed to go unnoticed.

“…A punishment? _That’s_ why you guys were so hellbent on bringing me over here?” Kuzuryuu said, gritting his teeth at his kidnappers. He turned back to Monokuma, who was tottering about nearby. “You’re saying you would have actually done something to these guys if they hadn’t dragged my ass all the way down here? What the hell kind of agreement is that?!”

“I assume it must have been serious, if it required a reaction of that caliber,” Pekoyama added.

Monokuma laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t have done anything _to_ them, per se, but something would have definitely _happened,_ and for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say it wouldn’t have been pretty! But hey, we don’t need to worry about it anymore. We’ve got other plans for you, kid!”

It was obvious he was referring to the erasure of the memory. Kuzuryuu took a few steps back. Even if it was a lesser punishment than death, it was still a violation of his mind that he was not willing to submit to, especially one performed by a stuffed bear who had a few screws loose. “H-Hey… I still don’t want you messing around in my head, you know! I don’t trust you for a second, you rotten bastard!”

“Anyways, before we begin,” Monokuma said, stepping in between the group, and pivoting towards Souda, Sonia, and Tanaka. “Just so you three are aware, the deal we had agreed to was only the erasure of a _single_ person’s memory, the one of the culprit alone, so if anyone else found out, you technically failed. But yes, before you worry your little hearts any more, you’ve satisfied all the conditions at this point and passed with flying colors.”

“Then let’s do it! C’mon!” Souda cried.

“Not so fast!” he said. “There is _one_ thing I’d like to ask first, a question for Kuzuryuu-kun, as his one last opportunity to fight back! We’ve still got a few minutes to turn this around!” He spun innocently towards his victim, clasping his paws behind his back with devious flair.

“F-Fight back…?”

“So, as a chance for your final act of defiance, what do you say?” he asked, lifting his eyes up at Kuzuryuu, who watched as the bear’s malevolent smile seemed to double in size. “Would you care to throw these three to the dogs, and tell Pekoyama what you saw that night? Are you willing to let the secret slip and cause all of their effort in finding you to go completely to waste in retaliation for what they did to you just now? In other words, since they’ll then be failing the keep-it-a-secret part, what I’m asking is this – _would you like to see their punishment forced on them anyway?”_

Their jaws dropped. Tanaka had been right – they had truly made a deal with the devil, if there ever was one. They could do nothing but look on as Kuzuryuu’s eyes grew to the size of dinnerplates, the gangster seeming to lose the ability to form words, his face flushing in embarrassment now having been placed in a predicament of his own. Pekoyama stood waiting patiently for his answer nearby, but if there was one thing he was _not_ ready to plant into her mind, it was the image of Tanaka’s head at Souda’s groin, finishing him off on Sonia’s bedroom floor. The scene was still burned into his memory.

“I-I…” he stuttered, pulling at his collar. The sweat was starting to drip down his forehead. “I… I really don’t…”

“Go ahead, Kuzuryuu,” Pekoyama said, crossing her arms. “You can tell me what you saw, no matter how horrible. I am not here to pass judgement.”

“It’s all up to you, Kuzuryuu-kun!”  Monokuma said. “Doesn't revenge sound sweet? Go ahead, make my day!”

“I………” His stalling dragged on as the others’ eyes bored into him.

“Kuzuryuu-san,” Sonia interrupted. “I-If I may so suggest, it may be beneficial for us to speak things through before committing any rash actions…”

“………”

“It’s fine. You can tell me,” Pekoyama stated. Her gaze grew more severe.

Kuzuryuu glanced toward the other three, saw the pleading in their pitiful eyes, and let a deep sigh escape from his lungs. Defeated, he turned his head to the ground. “No, I… I don’t want to do it here. Not right now. I’m sorry, but… do you mind if we talk about this for a second, just between me and them?”

“Kuzuryuu–”

“I mean it!” he snapped. “I just… need to explain myself first, alright? I’ll be fine here for a few minutes. I can handle myself.”

Pekoyama was hesitant to agree, but Monokuma gave her a reassuring nod that indicated he would keep an eye on things for her. Of course, she didn’t trust the bear for a moment, but the severity in which Kuzuryuu had delivered his order could not be ignored. Despite her misgivings, she offered her compliance. “…That is fine. I trust your judgement. In that case, I will remain out of earshot for a short time, but I will not be going very far.”

She stepped away from the gathering to give them a moment of privacy, pulling her sword out of the sand to take with her before she departed. After casting back a single, watchful glare, she began heading out in the direction of the ranch, eventually disappearing beyond the dense foliage in an area that was well out of earshot from the beach.

With Pekoyama far enough away, it was safe for the rest of them to go into further detail about the incident for the time being. Kuzuryuu shoved his hands into his pockets and scrunched up his shoulders as he braced himself for the question that was sure to be brought up at any moment.

“And so it begins! The thrilling conclusion to our special edition ‘ass trial’!” Monokuma shouted, drawing a look of ire from each of the others. “What does our culprit have to say for himself?”

“Yeah…” Souda said, narrowing his eyes at him. “What exactly _were_ you doing at Sonia’s cottage that night?”

His head was tilted back towards the ground in shame. “I… It wasn’t what you might think, I can promise you that. I sure as hell don’t get my rocks off on that kind of thing. But dammit, if it’s ever a stupid reason… I don’t even know how I’m gonna explain this…”

“If not for lustful indulgence, then what was it?” Tanaka asked.

“I know, I know, it’s stupid. This was a terrible idea, alright? If I had known, I would have never done this that night,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just… I’m probably gonna have to ask for your forgiveness for even thinking such a thing in the first place, but…”

“But what?” Souda asked.

He forced his eyes up at the mechanic, his expression turning to steel. “I thought you were being a fucking _creep!”_

“W-What…?” Souda stammered. He fiddled with his zipper, his face flushing with guilt for no good reason despite the fact that he had no idea what he’d even done wrong. Sonia and Tanaka tilted their heads in, listening with deep interest for the rest of his explanation.

“I don’t know! You just… have that look, okay?” he said, gesturing at Souda’s entire body. “It’s my own damn fault for makin’ assumptions!”

He still didn’t understand. “Th-Then how did… what does that have to… why were you over by Sonia’s cottage that night…?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind, I would be interested in hearing the full account,” Sonia said.

“I told you, it’s stupid, okay? And don’t think I was trying to watch out for anyone here, because I wasn’t!” he said adamantly. “But… fine. I suppose it ain’t gonna make sense any other way. See, on the night of the party, after it had gotten dark, Hinata came up to talk to me after I had been off by myself for a while. He said a few things that I don’t remember, but one thing he _did_ happen to mention was that Souda had just taken off early, apparently not long after they noticed Sonia was gone. He said he and the other guys had found it kind of amusing, and maybe they weren’t thinking about it the same way as I was, but y’know… I knew you were never one to leave an event early, and… with the drinks and all being handed out that night… I dunno. It didn’t sit right with me.”

“I-If I am interpreting this correctly,” Sonia said, her expression hardening, “you had assumed Souda to be following me with unsavory intentions, is this true?”

He breathed out through his nose. “Yeah, I guess that’s what you could call it. And at the time, I had no idea that Tanaka had left, too. Right after Hinata had said that, Nidai and Owari started makin’ a whole bunch of noise, and while everyone else started to crowd around them, I thought I’d… go investigate. Just out of curiosity, nothing else. I had nothing better to do since I sure as hell wasn’t interested in whatever those idiots were doing.”

“Are you serious? You friggin’ followed me?!” Souda said. “What if I really _had_ just been going to bed?!”

“I know. It was a mistake. But at first, I didn’t think you were _really_ gonna do anything sketchy, and I thought maybe I was just being paranoid,” he explained. “But then… right as I made it past the hotel gates, I caught sight of your bright yellow jumpsuit over at Sonia’s cottage. And there you were, sneaking around to her back door. I came just as you were rounding the corner.”

Sonia closed her eyes. They could have kicked themselves for that revelation. The extra step they had added so Souda wasn’t seen going in her front door had only succeeded in making him look as suspicious as possible.

“So you assumed, in error, that he was attempting to break into her dwelling?” Tanaka asked.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “It didn’t even cross my mind for a second that you’d have invited Souda over voluntarily.”

“Thanks,” Souda mumbled.

“…Anyways, I waited for a while, in case it was some kind of mistake, and I was ready to give you some _serious_ hell when you came back, but then you never did,” Kuzuryuu said. “What was I supposed to do? I sure as hell didn’t know. I paced around, wondering if I should go knock, or wait longer, or what, and I almost went back to the beach to get help or at least a second opinion, but I got halfway there and changed my mind. I figured it’d just be easier to handle things on my own instead of getting the rest of those guys involved. So I headed back – I don’t even know how much time had passed – and after looking around to see if you’d ever come out, I went up near her cottage myself to see if I could find out what the hell was going on.”

“Which must have been… right in the middle of _‘it’_ , I presume?” Sonia said.

“Y-Yeah, I guess. Against my better judgement, I pressed my ear up to the door to see if I could hear anything, and after a few seconds, I made out what sounded like… er, a cry of distress from Sonia, or something,” he said, lifting a hand up to his flourescent red face, “…that I later realized was probably something else.”

Sonia tugged at her collar, while Souda, with raised eyebrows, turned his head to look at her. “I-I don’t believe that requires any further detail…” she said.

“R-Right. But at that point, I knew something weird was going on. Just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, I wanted to see if I could find a way to confirm it before I just barged in. That’s when I saw some light coming out from the side window.”

“R…Really?” Souda said. He didn’t dare mention it, but that had been the very same beam of light that he had ducked under on his way into Sonia’s cottage, the one that he had intentionally avoided peering into on his way around to the back door that night.

“Ugh… I should have never done it, thinking back, since it was really none of my business,” he sighed, “but curiosity had gotten the best of me. I figured I could just check really quick, and if it really _was_ a false alarm, no one would ever know I’d been there if I was quiet enough. I don't even know what I was expecting to find. So I went onto that ledge, around the corner, and shoved my head up into the window to see what was going on.”

“And then… that must have been when…”

“A-And… _fuck_ , was I wrong. All I got was an eyeful of you bastards doing whatever the fuck you were doing in there. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to describe it twice. It caught me so off guard that I almost pushed myself away from the wall in reaction – I knew right away I wasn’t supposed to be there – and that’s when my foot slipped off the ledge. I tried to catch myself, but ended up scraping down the whole wall instead, and while I was trying to stick close to the wall to hang on, I hit my chest on that wooden ledge hard enough to break a piece off the damn thing. As if falling off wasn't bad enough, I got the wind knocked out of me right as I went into the water.”

“Oh! Is that why you flinched so bad when I kneed you in the chest earlier?” Souda asked.

“Well, that and the fact that you _kneed me in the chest_ , you motherfucker, but yeah, I suppose. In fact, I’ve still got the bruise from that night.”

Though Kuzuryuu disliked showing himself off more than he needed to, with a bit of hesitation, he curled his fingers under the front of his dress shirt to lift it up just high enough to show them his injury and nothing more. Below his ribcage was a nasty, discolored line of skin, bad enough that it caused the three of them to recoil upon viewing it. It was likely the first time he had ever revealed it to anyone since the incident. He quickly covered himself up again, and though Sonia had opened up her mouth to say something, Kuzuryuu got a word in first.

“It’s nothin’, I’ve had worse,” he said, fixing the front of his suit around his waist. “But after that, I barely had enough strength to pull myself back up. I knew you guys must’ve figured out someone was close by after all the racket I caused since then I heard you guys shifting around up in there, and for a few seconds, I thought you were gonna find me before I could make it out. Once I managed to crawl back up, though, with no other ideas, I took off towards the gates and hid in the bushes. Right as I crouched down, I saw Tanaka walk out the door.”

“Where I discovered the footprints moments later,” Tanaka said, drawing his lips into a tight frown. “Had I known your presence was within mere walking distance, I would not have allowed you to escape so _easily_.”

Kuzuryuu was barely able to hold eye contact with the three of them as he finished his recollection, his face stained with guilt. He bit his lip. “Yeah, I know. I would have probably deserved it, too. And to be honest, I don’t know what I would have done if you’d have come looking for me. I stayed and listened for a while to make sure the coast was clear when I got up, and it was pretty obvious you guys were pissed. ‘Night demon’, huh?” he said. Tanaka’s brow raised.

“Well, that does indeed explain the incident itself quite clearly,” Sonia said, tapping her chin. “But it does not explain how Togami claimed to have had everyone at the beach present for his head count when they left. How could that have been the case?”

“No… the ritual was not conducted at the beach,” Tanaka clarified. “It was done under the lamps at the hotel gates, where one could see the face of every individual. On a night without the graceful presence of the moon’s light, the beach itself would have been far too dark once the torches had been extinguished. The substantial one must have instructed the rest of those fiends to follow him back and would have been under the legitimate impression that the group would not change from the beach to the hotel. I assume then, _night demon_ , you must have rejoined them?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “I couldn’t just take off from the party, not say anything to anyone, and then never come back. After I saw you and Souda go back to your cottages, I hurried over to my own to change out of my wet clothes to try and head back before anyone noticed. But right as I had walked out onto the road, I saw those guys all coming – well, actually, I heard them first – so instead, I ducked off to the side and waited until they got here. I slipped up behind them while they weren’t looking, and as Togami made the rounds through everyone, he counted me present without suspecting a thing. At that point, I thought I was in the clear.”

He had been in the clear with Togami, but not with one other particular girl, whose notice of his absence he had failed to mention to the other three. The recollection of the whispers that he and Pekoyama had exchanged that night, the ones that had taken place while the other students’ attentions were occupied, was brought to the forefront of his mind.

\---

_“ _…_ Where have you been?”_

_“Huh? N-Nowhere.”_

_“You seem on edge, young master. What is the matter?”_

_“I-I’m not! Don’t worry about it!”_

_“Did something happen? You’re shivering. And… is your hair wet?”_

_“Just… just drop it, alright? It’s nothing!”_

\---

“So yeah, that’s… basically everything.” he said, and brought his eyes up to meet theirs. “If I had known all this was gonna happen, I would have said something, but… I’m sorry. And I'm sorry, er… to Souda, too, I guess, for assuming you'd even do something like that in the first place.”

“No, Kuzuryuu-san, it is us who should be sorry!” Sonia stated, joining her hands in front of herself in remorse. “If we had known you had not committed the act out of malice, we would not have been so cruel! Please do not be angry with us!”

“I-I’m not angry!” he said, his volume rising anyway. “But honestly… all you were afraid of was that I was gonna tell everyone, so the first thing you thought to do was have Monokuma _erase my memory?_ That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life!!”

She nodded. “It was merely because… we did not know of the consequences that would have been imposed for my promiscuous actions had such information been released to the high authorities of both Novoselic and Hope’s Peak Academy, and… in the case of Takana-san and Souda-san, I believe their concern was about being seen enjoying themselves so freely and with such vigor.” The two boys had their eyes fixated on opposite points in the distance. “We thought the person who had witnessed us would surely let the dogs out, and that is why we acted so rashly!”

“’Let the cat out of the bag’, I believe, is the phrase you are searching for,” Tanaka said.

“…The what? N-No! _Fuck_ no!” he exclaimed. “I know we’re still in high school, which still makes all three of you a bunch of crazy shitheads, but… I don’t _care_ that you guys were fooling around, and nobody else should either! It’s none of my goddamn business, and it’s definitely not any of theirs!”

“So in other words, you would not have divulged such information to anyone else? Even without our intervention?" Sonia asked.

“No, and I don’t plan on it either, if you’re that worked up about it,” he said, letting his tense muscles relax. “I just… don’t want to see it next time, alright? Buy some fuckin’ shades, would ya?”

“Maybe quit peepin’ in windows, is more like it,” Souda sneered.

As the two started moving towards one another to face off a second time, Monokuma stepped in between them, growing impatient with their conversation. “Alright, alright, are you guys done yet? Can we finish this thing up so I can send you bastards back to work?”

They had almost forgotten about the final step.  There was exactly one piece left in their convoluted plan – the erasure of Kuzuryuu’s memory. With nothing left to say, they gave a light nod, and Monokuma threw his arms up in the air to celebrate their decision. The two parties stood opposite from one another as he began his spiel.

“Okay! Are we finally ready for Kuzuryuu’s special punishment? It’s showtime!” he exclaimed. “The erasing of his horrible memory! What a relief! Better hope I don’t mess this up and accidentally erase everything, huh?”

Kuzuryuu shifted uncomfortably – it was obvious he did not want to carry through with their plan. There was no doubt that Monokuma’s procedure would be less than pleasant. Through the look on the yakuza’s face, it was clear that he was dreading whatever was coming next, and Sonia, who picked up on it first, seemed to be more concerned about this than the others were. She moved her eyes in between the two boys that stood on either side of her and spoke up in a soft whisper before Monokuma could proceed.

“E-Excuse me…” she interrupted. “If you don’t mind… I don’t feel the punishment may be necessary anymore.”

“…What?” Both Souda and Tanaka snapped their heads toward her. Despite their apprehension, Sonia was resolute in her statement, and with everyone’s eyes fixed upon her, she continued her explanation.

“Yes, I believe it would be superfluous, don’t you agree?” she said. “Kuzuryuu-san has stated his intentions to keep this a secret, and he is quite sincere. Therefore, I would not wish to allow Monokuma to alter his brain without his permission. That, and he has already willingly spared us of our own punishment after being given the choice to do so. Would it not be fair if we did the same?”

A silence fell amongst the two boys in the midst their uncertainty. While they had their doubts, Sonia wasn’t wrong; it would only be fair if they gave him mercy. Kuzuryuu would never admit to it, but it seemed he really _had_ been concerned about his fellow classmates, and to punish him for going out of his way for them – even though he had ended up being so, _so_ wrong – would be downright insulting.

That, and they supposed Pekoyama would murder them if anything went awry.

“Then… I suppose if that is how the fates have aligned this day, it cannot be helped,” Tanaka said. “An admirable decision, to be met with one of equal valor.”

With Tanaka’s consent, everyone’s eyes then turned to Souda, who was a bit more hesitant in his agreement. A pained expression had formed itself on his face. However, it wasn’t like he could be the only one to say no, and upon witnessing the conviction from Sonia, he gave in with a small, stubborn nod.

Kuzuryuu felt a weight lift off his shoulders. “I-If you mean it, that’d be great, I guess,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind having my brain bleached of _that_ particular memory, but… not by that thing, if you catch my drift.”

Monokuma’s ears twitched. Though the four of them had come to an agreement, the bear was the one with the final say in the matter, so nothing could be finalized until they could get his approval. However, without so much as a hint of resistance, he gave in to their agreement with a loud groan.

“Ohh, fine. Man, you kids are boring. Anyway, since you did bring him here successfully, the conditions are technically satisfied, and I guess I don’t need to erase the memory if you insist. That part was just the bonus!”

“So you’re not gonna punish us still, right…?” Souda asked, gesturing at his partners. “There’s not some kind of crazy loophole in this that you can still use against us, is there?”

“Hmm… nah, I suppose I can’t break my own rules,” he said, shrugging. “But this works out even better for me! Not only did I get to see you guys do all that work for free, but now Kuzuryuu gets to keep the most despair-inducing memory of them all! Ah-hahahaha!”

Despite his maniacal laughter, a wave of relief washed over the entire group. It wasn’t the solution they had intended on, but it was a solution nonetheless, even if it meant a few hard feelings would probably linger between them for a while – after all, they did kind of break into Kuzuryuu’s room and tie him up against his will.

“Heh heh… well, that was somethin’, wasn’t it?” Souda said, rubbing the back of his head. “Can we agree to forget this ever happened and never bring it up again?”

“Right. I’ll try not to tell the others that you guys just tried to fuckin’ kidnap me and have my memory erased after I caught you in the middle of a threesome,” Kuzuryuu said, with a bitterness to his tone. “Anyways, are we done here?”

“‘Are we done here?’, he asks?” Monokuma scoffed. “Did you already forget about our other person? You didn’t think we were going to just leave her over there this whole time, did you?”

Souda gave a nervous laugh. “Heh heh… are you sure we really need to bring her back? I don’t really think that’s necessary, is it?” Kuzuryuu shot him another hostile glare.

“Why, of course! Let’s go get her so we can finish this up!” He began bounding towards the ranch to fetch Pekoyama, leaving the remaining four standing across from one another waiting for his return. They stared off into space, listening to the waves beat against the shore to take their minds off the awkward atmosphere, with not a single word dared uttered between them for a painfully long duration of time.

Not a single word, that is, until Kuzuryuu broke their silence to make one final remark.

“Listen, Sonia, I know I just said I don’t care what you guys did in your spare time,” he said, causing all three of them to look up at him. “But, of all the goddamn people on the island… seriously? _These_ two guys? What the fuck?”

Tanaka blinked. “Are you perhaps asking why you weren’t invited?”

“…N-No! Don’t start getting any weird ideas!”

“Oh, I got it,” Souda said, twirling his finger at him. “You and Peko got your own thing goin’ on, don’t ya? Is that why-”

“-N-NO!! Shut the _fuck_ up! Don’t you dare say another word or I’ll make sure you lose a finger for every one!”

Their brief exchange was interrupted when Monokuma came stumbling back onto the beach with Pekoyama at his side. Though they had hushed the moment she came into view, their raised voices were enough to get her to pick up her pace. As she joined back up with them, she did a conspicuous loop around the back of Kuzuryuu, appearing to be inspecting him for any signs of distress, but when she found nothing of note he shook off her concern.

“It’s fine. They didn’t touch me,” he said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “I’ve still got it.”

Pekoyama was not quite as convinced. She positioned herself at his side, eyeing the others with suspicion. “Is this true? You haven’t been brainwashed, have you?”

“Nope! He’s completely untouched, left with the awful memory that’s going to be simmering in his brain for all of eternity! What a deal, huh?” Monokuma said.

“We came to an agreement, so I guess that’s that,” Kuzuryuu said. “We should probably get going, then. Let’s forget about this.”

“Y-Yeeeaahh, we should probably definitely get going! I’m pretty sure we’re done here, right? Right! Alright, I’m going now-!” Souda said, turning on his heel to leave before Pekoyama’s words cut through his escape.

“Wait,” she interrupted. The other three began to sweat.

“…I am in agreement with the petulant one!” Tanaka said, having also taken a few steps back. “I do believe we are through with our exchange! Such a simple solution to a simple, inoffensive problem, that is all! There is no need to worry!” He gave her a lopsided grin.

“No. I don’t feel comfortable simply ignoring what occurred here today,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest, and her intense gaze left them frozen in place as she continued her statement. “May I ask what the incident was that took place that night so I can understand why all this happened here today?”

The lengthy silence that followed was deafening. Pekoyama, as stubborn as she was, would not be one to back down from her request. The four of them looked amongst themselves, waiting for one of the others to speak up, but it was pretty clear that her question had been directed towards Kuzuryuu. He tugged at his tie.

“Pekoyama I… just told them I wouldn’t _tell_ anyone…” he muttered through tight lips.

“But I feel it would be in my best interest to know. For _reasons_ ,” she emphasized, nodding in his direction.

His response was sheepish. “I-I can’t just… _say_ it… out loud…”

“Kuzuryuu,” she said firmly. “I NEED to know, alright?”

There was no use arguing with her. The girl was set in her ways. With a look of apology, he turned towards the other three, as both boys on either side of Sonia began rapidly shaking their heads in unison.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, but… do you mind if I tell just _one_ person, as long as she’s been through all this with us already? And because she’s probably gonna get it out of us one way or another?”

“Well…” Sonia said, as Souda cut a hand across his throat and Tanaka nestled himself deeper into his muffler. “I suppose… it would be best to do so in a controlled environment, if it is going to happen regardless. If we do divulge our secret, does Pekoyama promise not to tell anyone as well?”

She gave a curt nod. “If it is that important to you, and if it means you are willing to tell me what happened, I will protect it with my life. The secret dies with me.” She was dead serious in her statement.

“In that case…” Sonia said quietly, as the sweat poured off her companions’ foreheads, “I suppose that would be fine.”

For Kuzuryuu, getting permission was one thing, but actually telling the girl was another. He stalled, attempting to find the shortest, least-offensive way to formulate the message in his head, as there was no way she would allow him to back out now. With a deep exhale, he circled back towards Pekoyama. “Fine. I’ll say it. But I’m gonna whisper it to you, got it? You’re gonna regret this.”

Pekoyama, of course, had no idea what she was about to hear, but could only assume it had to be something along the lines of the most heinous atrocity to ever be committed in the history of the island, and depending on one’s viewpoint, maybe she wasn’t wrong. But with that in mind, she gave Kuzuryuu her affirmation, and readied herself for whatever was about to come next.

Kuzuryuu took in a breath, and with the trio’s very doom unraveling before their eyes, he stepped up to Pekoyama and lifted himself up on his toes to deliver his account. She bent down to meet him halfway, presenting her ear at his level for him to speak into, and after a few healthy seconds of delay, he began to relay the obscene description into her ear with about as much bluntness as he could manage. At first, she remained stone-faced, but as the details began to pour in, her brow slowly lowered, and with her lips pressed into a thin line, she turned her head back up at the three perpetrators, who were attempting (and failing) to act casual about the whole thing while the scene was reconstructed in her head. It wasn’t like they were paying attention or anything, their faces as bright as ripe red tomatoes, embarrassed beyond all fathomable reason knowing she would never be able to look at them the same way again.

As he finished, Kuzuryuu broke away from her, his rosy cheeks on fire. “There. Happy now? Are you glad you know that?”

It was quite a load to process all at once. She remained quiet for a few moments, mainly due to the mild shellshock at what she’d just been told, but finally managed to muster a response.

“Well…” she said, straightening herself out. “That is not at _all_ what I was expecting to hear, but… that is fine. As promised, I will guard the secret with my life.” Though deadpan in her delivery, they couldn’t help but notice the corners of her lips twitch.

Tanaka’s scarf was pulled up to his eyes. Even Sonia, who was normally the cool-headed individual of the group, found herself struggling to offer some form of explanation. “I-I assure you, it was a one-time arrangement!”

“I’m sure it was,” she said, giving an ever-so-slight bob of her head, and passing a curious glance between the two boys at Sonia’s side.

A few more awkward seconds passed before Souda’s shrill voice pierced their surroundings. “Okay, NOW can we go, for real? Can we stop talking about this?!”

Kuzuryuu nodded. “Y-Yeah, let’s.”

The gangster wasted no time in spinning around to leave while Pekoyama followed him in step, and they soon vanished behind the bridge to the central island to head to their assigned destinations. If the trio was lucky, that would be the first and last time the subject ever needed to be brought up in front of those two or anyone else on the island. All things considered, Pekoyama did take things pretty well after their initial rocky encounter, even after the phrase ‘Tanaka going down on Souda’ had been whispered into her ear, which would have been enough to give most of the other students nightmares for weeks.

She did, however, cast back one last questionable look as they walked away.

Once those two had gone out of their sight, the other three were left awaiting their dismissal, patiently standing by to see if Monokuma had anything else for them to do. Monokuma began tidying himself up, acting as if nothing had ever happened, and hobbled over to the burlap sack that was resting nearby. He didn’t seem at all perturbed by what had just taken place.

“Is that it, then?” Sonia asked. “Would you like us to leave, too?”

“Hmm… I guess. You’ve entertained me enough for one day,” Monokuma said, and lifted his bag up in front of himself. “But what am I gonna do with all these _tapes?”_

Souda stormed forward, mouthing “Gimme that!” and ripped the bag out of the bear’s grasp. He yanked it open, pulled out a single tape to read its description, and with a look of raging disgust, he quickly dropped it back in and snapped it shut. With the bag slung behind his back, he walked over to the edge of the water and proceeded to hurl the object over his shoulder with all of his might. It flew far beyond the break where it landed with a muffled splash.

He looked out over the water at his heroic deed, watching the tapes slowly scatter in all directions, before Tanaka stepped up behind him to utter a few words. “You do realize… that they are all going to wash back up on shore, correct?”

“…FUCK!!”

It wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, considering that the saltwater-damaged tapes would not have been in any condition to watch anymore, except for the fact that Monokuma had taken the time to write a summary of their contents in thick, permanent marker on every single tape, each description more horrific than the last. The last thing they needed was someone like Saionji walking out onto beach and discovering a tape half-buried in the sand with the cryptic inscription ‘SOUDA+SONIA+TANAKA AMATEUR XXX AUDITION TAPE’ or ‘TANAKA/SOUDA REAL BLOWJAY FOOTAGE’ scribbled on it in giant black letters.

Souda stumbled back over to the bear and shook him like a ragdoll. “How many _were_ there?!”

“Oh, one for everyone. Sixteen?”

“…You made some for us?!”

“What can I say? I’m a courteous bear.”

So for the rest of the afternoon, while Sonia and Tanaka left to go take care of their own work assignments, Souda was left to scour the beach for every single copy of the explicit tape that washed back on shore so that no other human on earth would ever have to be exposed to their contents.

\-------------

After all the trouble they’d gone through only to have their secret affair end in spectacular failure, one would think they’d have learned their lesson by now. But even after the pressure of Monokuma’s deadline had been removed, it felt like something was missing.

Souda looked out over the sea of tables with a deep feeling of emptiness in his stomach. On one side of the room, Sonia and Tanaka had found seats across from one another without him, already engaged in conversation about whatever arcane subject they usually found to talk about, and on the other side of the room was Hinata, whose companionship he’d been neglecting since the incident occurred. He took a few steps over to his soul friend’s table before realizing someone else beat him to the punch. To his great annoyance, Kuzuryuu, the _one_ person he had intended to avoid like the plague for the next few days, had taken a seat right next to him before he could arrive. Kuzuryuu saw Souda take one look in his direction and immediately tightened his fist around his fork – no, he hadn’t quite forgotten yet. It’d be a safe bet to keep his distance from him for a while longer.

Now that things were back to normal, Sonia and Tanaka really had no reason to tolerate his presence anymore – not after everything he’d done to help screw things up. In the end, their involvement the past few days had been strictly business, even after the events in that took place in Sonia’s cottage on the night of the party meant they now knew each other better than they ever needed to. With a sigh, he turned around to grab some food before a deep cough caught his attention.

“…Huh?”

He spun around to find both Sonia and Tanaka’s eyes aimed in his direction. On instinct, he froze, but Tanaka soon brought down his muffler and tilted his head back in the same recognizable _come here_ gesture he’d seen the guy give him the day before.

Oh no. This was it. They were gonna kill him now, for real. Make an example out of him in front of everyone. They’d find a way to use him as their kinda-sorta-virgin sacrifice, even if he was only a virgin in a no-homo kind of way, which he could maybe use as his defense in case they tried to offer his body up to Satan. Despite the grim thoughts brewing at the back of his mind, he swallowed his fear and slinked over to their spot at the far end of the room.

Souda paused at the edge of their table, awaiting his final retribution at the hands of his former companions, but to his surprise, he found the looks on their faces weren’t angry at all. Rather, they were almost… relaxed?

Sonia’s voice snapped him out of his delusion. “…Souda-san, are you going to have a seat?”

He quickly nodded and pulled out the empty chair besides them. Whatever they had in store for him, it couldn’t be good. His fear then bubbled back up to the surface when he noticed her expression suddenly grow serious. But instead of reaching across the table and strangling him as he had expected, it turned out she and Tanaka had an entirely different idea on the mind – a horrible, god-awful idea, one that was just as bad now as it had been a few days ago.

Technically, on the night of the party, they had never even managed to make it past the foreplay stage. Even if it had lasted only a short while, they could still admit – deep down, maybe – that it had been at least partially enjoyable before they were interrupted in such a crude manner. However, one thing was for certain: if they intended for the terms from the very initial agreement to be _truly_ satisfied, it meant they still had some unfinished business to take care of.

Because what better way to take their minds off everything they’d been through than to try it all over again like a bunch of idiots? If at first you don't succeed...

“Well… while I didn’t intend for this to become a more-than-once occasion, and I certainly don’t wish to imply that it should become one…” Sonia said, lowering her voice to a near inaudible mumble, “I do believe we are due for a _quiet night in_ , if you are to be ‘catching my drift’, as they say.”

It took him a moment to realize what she was implying, and Souda had to turn away to conceal the large grin that had cracked on his face before anyone noticed. Unfortunately, Tanaka _did_ notice, and cleared his throat before the mechanic could get too excited.

“It will be purely a matter of… tension relief, one might say. Nothing more,” Tanaka said, his words muffled through his scarf. “To cast the blighted memory of the last few days’ events back into hell where it belongs. Such matters would serve as a proper diversion, in any case.”

Maybe that was the idea. One evening that ended in grand success could be enough to wash the bad taste out of their mouths. Unless of course, the whole ordeal with the witness happened again, in which case they’d probably just give up forever and commit to a life of celibacy, but the chances of such a random occurrence happening twice were one in a million.

“But this time, there will be no tomfoolery allowed,” Sonia said firmly. “I will not be having any qualms about prying eyes or other forms of misgivings putting a damper on our evening. This time, we will be making some extra preparations this time around to maximize our enjoyment. Would you care to join us at Rocketpunch Market to pick up a few extra supplies?”

“Y-Yeah… yeah!” Souda said, his stupid grin expanding. “For our ' _quiet night in'_ … right! Gotcha!”

They had to shush him again for emphasizing the last phrase a bit too hard, but with a sense of renewed enthusiasm, the three of them quickly finished their dinner and headed out into the thick evening air to hit up the marketplace for their final arrangements. This time, Souda was not allowed to leave their side in fear of his big mouth tipping off any of the other students. But thankfully, unlike the night of the party, their classmates were all scattered around the islands so the chances that someone would notice that all three of them had mysteriously disappeared were pretty slim.

And a good thing it was. Their ‘quiet night in’ was anything but – instead, a very dark ritual commenced in Sonia’s bedroom that evening indeed, in a night filled with wild, hot fornication; utterly terrible and disgusting in all aspects, but an enjoyable kind of terrible, and now due to the deliberate addition of few extra window coverings, they were completely uninhibited  this time around. With an impressive amount of creativity, position-switching and general obscenity involving a few choice items, innocence was lost in more ways than one, and whatever you could possibly imagine happened in the bedroom that night, imagine it even filthier, because it most definitely was.

As the evening concluded, the three of them were left in a tangled heap of loose sheets and bare skin, left to bask in their state of orgasmic bliss. With not a care in the world at that very moment, they rested in their dark bedroom with their heads turned up at the ceiling, panting and covered in sweat and wondering what the hell was wrong with themselves.

“Wow,” Souda muttered. “That was pretty fucked up. Like super fucked up. But I liked it, so whatever.”

It was still against the rules to tamper with the cameras, so Monokuma was left to watch their whole pornographic display from start to finish. Still, at least the three of them could rest assured that no other human on earth had to bear witness to their obscene spectacle, especially not the Future Foundation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the future foundation is gonna need some holy water)
> 
> My god this was the most ridiculous, self-indulgent thing ever but I'm glad you made it to the end of super bangin' ronpa 2! Bless your kind comments/kudos etc. It was fun
> 
> There's still a really short epilogue in the works so hold tight!


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should have been up like a month ago. :O Apologies for being the world's slowest writer.
> 
> ANYWAY, this is the real end, for real. This was a wild ride.

“Excuse me!”

The voice that had manifested itself in the restaurant that morning belonged to none other than Monokuma. Whatever it was, the bear was desperately trying to get the students’ attentions, and was weaving in and out of their tables in an attempt to get them to notice his presence. However, no one cared about whatever he had to say, so the group continued chatting despite his dramatically increasing volume in the background.

“Ahem! Excuse me!” he continued obnoxiously. “A- _HEM!!”_

Finally, one student found themselves annoyed enough to look up from their plate to acknowledge him. Owari, with bulging cheeks, managed to get a few words out from her mouthful of food. “Whaddaya want? We’re try’na eat here.”

“Thank you kindly, Miss Owari!” Monokuma said, speaking over the din of chatter that was now quieting down at the sound of his voice. There was something about his unexpected appearance that was always unsettling, and this occasion would be no exception.

Hinata’s body slumped further into his chair. “What is it this time, Monokuma…?”

“What’s with that tone? You say that like I’m bothering you or something!” he said. “I have a _very_ important issue that needs to be brought to your attention, so I need you all to stop what you’re doing and listen! This announcement pertains to a rule on the island that was very _callously_ broken by one of my very own students! Abhorrent!!”

From a nearby table, the group composed of Souda, Sonia and Tanaka felt themselves instinctively sit up straighter. Surely, he couldn’t be talking about them… right? They hadn’t technically broken any rules, no matter what kind of mischief had gone down last night, and there was potentially thirteen other students that he could be seeking to torment. Still, any kind of special Monokuma announcement was reason enough for concern.

“You see, in my efforts of keeping this island a beautiful, glittering diamond, I discovered that we have a _litterer_ in our midst! And lo and behold, what I found lying in the dirt outside, was…” He reached a paw behind his back and whipped out a small, wrinkled piece of paper, holding it to show it off to the group before him. “…A receipt! From Rocketpunch Market! Out in the open, tainting the image of my beautiful island resort!”

The three of them felt their breath seize up. As Monokuma held the item up for everyone to see, Souda turned to Tanaka, tilting his head in at him and giving him a look of _‘you_ do _have the receipt, RIGHT?”_

Tanaka grunted, sending back Souda a look of _‘of course I have the receipt, you imbecile’,_ and pointed his eyes down at his pocket to signify that it was still safely in his possession. How dare such a lowly mechanic accuse the keeper of the Four Dark Gods of Destruction, Ascendant Ruler of Ice and heir to the throne of Hell, of losing a simple scrap of paper? Such a thought was downright preposterous.

Sonia, however, was likewise concerned, and was staring intently at the breeder as if to say _‘can you take it out, please, just to be sure?’_ , so of course, with only the smallest hint of annoyance, he obliged.

With both Souda and Sonia’s eyes fixed upon him, he stealthily snaked a hand down to his front pocket to pull out their transaction, the infernal slip of paper which contained the record of every single object from the depraved activities they had subjected themselves to the night before. A few silent seconds passed as he dug around, ready to prove once and for all that there was nothing for them to be worried about. But it was a moment later, the painful realization dawned upon him, that there was something very, very wrong about the inside of his pocket.

It was empty.

His brow wrinkled together. They could immediately tell by the look on his face that something wasn’t right. Souda leaned forward, aggressively mouthing _‘do you have it?!’_ to the man seated across from him, to which the breeder responded by turning away from them with a deep inhale and a fist pressed up against his mouth.

“...And I’d like to know who this receipt belongs to, because I’d like to return it to its rightful owner!” Monokuma’s voice continued from behind, and now that they were keenly aware of what he was holding up, both Sonia and Souda spun towards the bear in sheer, wide-eyed terror. “So in order to track down whoever is responsible for this filthy scrap of paper, I am going to be reading off _every single item_ listed on it to see if anyone here remembers making these purchases last night!”

A sputtering sound could be heard from their table.

“So, let’s see here…” he said, unfurling the paper and holding it up into the light to examine it. “The timestamp reads: 6:38 PM! Who could have had a reason to go the store at that time? Upupu!”

They could almost feel their souls leaving their body that very instant. Monokuma absolutely, _positively_ had to know the receipt belonged to them, and in failing to deliver them the punishment he wanted to had come to torment them any way he could. The devil didn’t sleep.

He eyed the list, stalling before he began reading off the content. “Lots of interesting things here… mmhmm…”

The body language from their table would have instantly given them away if anyone had been paying even the slightest attention to them. While Tanaka had his thousand-yard stare aimed out the window, Souda turned to Sonia, mouthing ‘WHAT DO WE DO?!’ to the princess, to which she replied with a curt hand gesture to shut the fuck up. Speaking up would instantly reveal their guilt to the others, so the best they could do was feign ignorance and hope it would pass.

To their great dismay, every single person’s undivided attention was directed towards the bear, and the other students began to glance amongst themselves to see who it was that Monokuma was trying to draw out. None of them had any reason to suspect that the receipt would be for anything more than an innocent purchase... not yet, anyway. 

“So… our first item,” Monokuma began, holding up the strip of paper like a scroll and clearing his throat before speaking. The three of them held their breaths. “Black curtains, large, set of four. Could it be that someone is trying to _hide_ something from us?”

Dead silence.

“Second item, candles… third, non-alcoholic wine…” His brow raised as he moved down the list. “Coconut oil… tissues…”

The guilty trio didn’t dare even turn around to look at him as he continued reading. The others' eyes were busy scanning the room for a culprit.

“Worldly desire glasses… man’s greatest chestnut… _lust_ setsugekka… apron dress… multi-sided dice set…”

The vibrant scenes from the previous night came rushing back into their minds. It was all downhill from there.

“ _Vibrating..._ kokeshi…” he paused extra hard on each word, letting his beady eyes zip across the room and come to a rest upon the table in the corner. “Bindings… gag ball… the clacker… _slap bracelets_ …”

It was like listening to someone read off a list of their crimes against humanity. It was far too late to speak up now.

“Hmm… something called ‘Okamoto Crown 36-pack’, not sure what those are, or why you would need that many…” He looked up at Souda.

As if their despair wasn't enough, there was at least one person in the room who probably had a good idea who was behind the filthy receipt. With an air of caution, Souda cast a wary glance over his shoulder, where his eyes met Kuzuryuu’s bitter glare on the other end of the room. The yakuza, whose fingers were intertwined in front of his face, gave him only the tiniest, most disappointed shake of his head.

“....Aaand looks like we have some snacks on the end. Cola, sunflower seeds, and gugelhupf cake. That’s it!” he said. “I didn’t realize we had such creative students in this room! Well, does anyone know who this belongs to?”

As he finished, the room went silent. Obviously, the other students weren’t dumb, but no one dared say a word about what he had just read off – the least they could do was give whichever poor person was responsible some dignity.

“Hmm? Anyone?” Monokuma’s head swiveled around as he waited for an answer. “Anyone at all recognize these items?”

Souda, Sonia and Tanaka held their breaths, frozen in place like statues at their table in hopes that the bear would give up and leave. Finally, one student’s voice rose up from the silence. It was Hiyoko Saionji, of all people, who inadvertently came to their rescue, and whose rather undignified comment proved to be enough to break the awkward tension.

“Pssh! Sounds like a bunch of weird crap Big Bro Hanamura would buy!”

A burst of immature giggling began to fill the room. As everyone’s heads turned towards Hanamura, the chef shot up from his seat, looking quite offended at the very notion.

“I-It’s not mine! Why are you all looking at me?!” he argued. “I would never buy such amateur-rank garbage!”

To their benefit, Hanamura was digging himself a deeper hole. The louder students' raucous laughter had been enough to distract them from the true deviants in the room. While the rest of their attentions were drawn away by Hanamura’s accusation, Souda managed to slip Monokuma an obscene gesture, holding it up just long enough for the bear to notice and tilt his head to the side. Monokuma taunted them back with an arrogant, sharktoothed smile.

As the snickering began to die down, he again raised his voice to regain control over the crowd. “Well then, if Hanamura insists on denying it, I guess we’ll just never know who this belongs to!” he said, crumpling up the piece of paper up in his hands and tossing it aside into a nearby garbage. “I hope you’re satisfied with your purchases, because Rocketpunch Market does not accept any returns without a receipt!”

With that, he vanished, leaving the rest of them to finish their breakfast in peace, and whose close call meant Tanaka would be incinerating all future receipts from the convenience store.

 

* * *

 

In a small, cramped room, far beyond the public eye, six black-suited figures met in secret, their space illuminated only by the soft glow of computer screens and blinking lights. At the center of their attention was a large monitor, playing a loop of recorded surveillance footage from an all-too-familiar island resort. With the click of a button, the playback was put on pause, and the figure seated in front of them, whose tall, lanky figure was stretched out in a swiveling desk chair, spun around to face the rest of his group.

“Now do you see what I’m talking about?” The man at the control desk, Byakuya Togami, had been the sole person put in charge of watching over the activity to make everything was going smoothly. “I don’t think I need to show you any more than that.”

The others in the room looked as though they weren’t quite sure how to react to what they’d just been shown. Fukawa in particular seemed upset that her man had been exposed to such filth (without her, anyway) and as such was muttering a few nasty comments under her breath, while behind his desk came a few more snickers from his colleagues, mainly Asahina, with a somewhat stunned look on her face and mumbling something to Hagakure along the lines of _‘wow, I’m glad_ our _class was never like this!"._ Togami gave them both a stern glare to remind them to stay professional.

“Ever since the Monokuma virus took over, each run of the simulation has been a complete disaster.” He pushed his glasses up on his face. “Even without his direct involvement, the place keeps turning into sex-and-violence island every single time we restart it and for no discernible reason. At this point, I’ve seen nearly every pairing under the sun. Naegi, did you know they were going to be like this when you took them in?”

Naegi shook his head vehemently, sputtering out a weak denial that he had any idea that this is how a bunch of hormone-addled teenagers would behave on a remote island with no adult supervision.

“The good news is so far we’ve been able to restart it every time things went awry, but I suspect Monokuma must have an ulterior motive beyond simply irritating us. It’s as though he’s stalling for some reason.” Togami looked back towards the screens. 

“What are we going to do with the footage?” came another voice belonging to Kirigiri, who was leaning with her arms folded together against a nearby wall. “We can’t show this to the higher-ups at the Future Foundation. They’d cut our funding.”

“The funding I could care less about. It’s the project itself I’m afraid they’ll put a stop to,” Togami said. “We need to make sure they never come across this footage as long as we live. In fact, I’d like to see them done away with in such a way that they’ll never see the light of day again. Encased in concrete, buried in a remote desert location in the cover of night, their coordinates conveniently misplaced. Similar to the ET cartridges, if you know what I’m talking about.”

An innocent comment from Hagakure interrupted the thought. “Didn’t they dig those up?”

“Hagakure.” Togami swiveled his chair towards him. “If someone chooses to find out where they're buried, digs them up, breaks them out of their concrete shell, finds them in working order, _and_ proceeds to watch them, I’m going to say that it becomes their problem, not ours.”

Hagakure shrugged, and Togami spun back around towards the smattering of disks and hard drives laid out on the desk. He ran his fingers through his hair as Kirigiri approached him from behind.

“You’re right, though. We’ll need them destroyed,” she said. “The best we can do is keep trying. In the meantime, the rest of us will keep working to see if we can remove the virus. Will you get things taken care of here?”

“Without a doubt. I’ll have the files destroyed without a trace.”

And so their late-night meeting came to a close, with each of the youngest members of the Future Foundation parting ways to return to their duties, leaving Togami to dispose of the footage in whatever way he pleased. They could rest assured that the heir would commit to his agreement.

What they didn’t need to know, however, was that he would be keeping a single copy safely tucked away in the Togami family archives, _just_ for their records – nothing else.

 

 

 


End file.
